Stylus 2020

A Journal of Poetry, Prose, & Art

2020 Issue

Editors and Staff

Editors-in-Chief Art Editors Audio/Performance Editor Layout Editors Editors Poetry Prose Editors Social Media Editor Treasurer Copy Editors Matthew Herskovitz Rahul Jain Gabriella Meléndez Ethan Welsh Balbina Yang

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Ethan Welsh & Balbina Yang Rao (Michelle) Li & Joan Rhee Rahul Jain Will Lee & Vivian Yeh Matthew Herskovitz & Amadea Oberg Alice Bi & Gabriella Meléndez Neida Mbuia-João Marjorie Antonio Cover Artist Vivian Yeh

Editors’ Note We are not yet halfway into 2020 and already, so much has happened. The world right now is heavy, weighed down by fear, loss, and emptiness. It is during stressful times like these that we look for comfort. Comfort that can only come from the home, whatever that may mean—your family around the table, a conversation between friends, a quiet moment with a book.

We hope that Stylus 2020 can be that book.

In this issue, our artists contemplate comfort in all of its forms, in a variety of ways. Some churn with anger like a summer thunderstorm; others are cold like icicles in the shade. But all of them are at sea, looking for a lighthouse, longing for the shore, praying for a lifeline.

When reading these pieces, we find ourselves feeling nostalgic, reflecting on times of love and loss. This journal offers a haunted reality, and in it, we are forced to confront the world outside. We see echoes of ourselves in these pages—echoes that, when pieced together, reveal a collective whole.

In these times, it is easy to feel lost but know that you are not alone.

Through this journal, we hope you find a new kind of home, one rooted in our shared experiences.

Ethan Welsh and Balbina Yang Editors-in-Chief

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Table of Contents Editors and Staff Editors’ Note Table of Contents Awards

2 3 4 6

ART

lost in reality, Alice Bi Liftoff, Jacy Zhang Waiting To Be Impressed, Cassiel Arcilla candid, Mmesomachukwu Nnoruka Evan is Beautiful, Dani Feng After a Night of Coffee, Balbina Yang Blind Justice, Doron Tadmor Lady of the Lake, Riya Chaudhry Never Trust a Cop With a Rubber Glove, Philip Dodge Pattern, Karli Lawrence The Cloth II, Haoran Li

10 23 26 39 40 46 48 59 71 81 85

AUDIO/PERFORMANCE

Holdback, Rahul Jain Breathe, Robert Wolle The Eyes, Haoran Li & Hadas Sandalon The Flower, Bethel Afful Heat, North Anatolian Fault TWICE BORN, Kevin Merrell Forest Ruins, Spencer Chan Inertia and Velocity, Vivian Yeh

11 11 34 34 50 50 55 55

POETRY

March the First, S.C. Giedzinski Summer Is, Adrienne Stovall The Birth of Eve, Ekphrastic, Callie Ingwersen The opposite of the flood, Matthew Herskovitz 4

12 24 35 36

aphrodite, Marjorie Antonio reflections, Paula Molina Acosta Remnants, Brooke Tweedie like it never happened, Alice Bi LD50 of Rubber Bullets, Daniel Zheng Bedsprings, Matthew Herskovitz

Illness, Meghan Lockwood Groupthink, Rachel Grossman Gentrified, But Not Forgotten, Sasha Kahn Caterpillar Killer, Linnea Cooley lands of my birth(s), Paula Molina Acosta Et in Arcadia Ego, Katherine Gourianova Halloween, Ethan Welsh

Tequila, Louise Daigneault no was my only witness, Liz Homick Home Making, Cecilia Cook Lady Peony, Emily Wang Wounds, Ethan Welsh Chang’e / 嫦娥 嫦娥, Emily Wang Root Canal, Madison Yoest Notes on carrying my own firewood, Caroline X. Adkins Prayer Hands: A Ghazal, Allison Garey The Gift, Caleb Wein Virgilio, Miranda Donovan Fall, Rachel Grossman

PROSE

38 38 41 47 49 51 51 52 53 54 56 58 67 68 69 70 80 80 82 83 83 84 86 87 88

The Giant, Nina Holtz You’re a Winner, S.C. Giedzinski PORTRAITS OF A HOME, Miranda Donovan The Kids Are Alright, Emily Ray The Pill, Gabriella Meléndez

13 27 42 60 72

Staff Biographies Contributor Biographies Acknowledgements Stylus and the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House Submission Guidelines

89 91 97 98 99 5

Awards CABRINI ART AWARD The Cabrini Art Award is an annual visual arts contest open to all University of Maryland undergraduates. The Award is administered by staff at the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House in hopes to bring more recognition to talented visual artists on campus.

Judges review the pieces after names of artists have been removed, to preserve anonymity.

1st Place: Alice Bi for “outburst” 2nd Place: Balbina Yang for “After a Night of Coffee” 3rd Place: Cassiel Arcilla for “Waiting To Be Impressed” Judges: Marjorie Antonio studies Art History at the University of Maryland.

She works at the Stamp Gallery, a contemporary art gallery, where she leads the bi-weekly Sketch Night program. She is a NextNOW Fest 2020 curator and an organizer for the local arts organization, Living Artists and Co. In her free time, she likes writing slam poetry and watching thrillers.

Anjali Ravi was the editor-in-chief of Stylus from 2017-2019. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in English and minor in Creative Writing. Currently she is training and volunteering at Kim Studio in College Park and working on applications for MFA programs.

Camila Tapia is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, having studied Studio Art, as well as Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Surreal, experimental, and playful, Camila dabbles in anything creative that piques their curiosity, such as fire dancing, music-making, hair cutting, and event organizing. They are the founder of Artsphere, a UMD art club, and Living Artists, a local arts collective. You can get in contact with them and find their work on Instagram @byunnaturalcauses

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JIMÉNEZ-PORTER LITERARY PRIZE The Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize is an annual writing contest open to all University of Maryland undergraduates. The Prize is going into its sixteenth year and is administered by staff at the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House. Judges read the manuscripts after names of authors have been removed, to preserve anonymity.

PROSE

1st Place: Chidinma Opaigbeogu for “And the Water Called Her” 2nd Place: Nina Holtz for “The Giant” 3rd Place: Amanda Bachman for “A Less Preferable Alternative to Divorce” First Round Judge: Ely Vance Final Judge: Meg Eden teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), and the poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020). She runs the MAGFest MAGES Library Blog, which posts accessible academic articles about video games (https://super.magfest.org/mages-blog).

Find her online at www.megedenbooks.com or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal.

POETRY 1st Place: Ray Newby for “Docility in Limbo” and “i’ve been meaning to write to you again / 63.4 miles”

2nd Place: Chidinma Opaigbeogu for “I saw ‘Quan at the Family Dollar last weekend” 3rd Place: Caitlin Lee-Hendricks for “Rape Poem Epilogue: for the Next One” First Round Judge: Emily Tuttle Final Judge: Shevaun Brannigan’s work has appeared in such journals as Best New Poets, AGNI, and Slice. She is a recipient of a Barbara J. Deming Fund grant and holds an MFA from Bennington College.

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JUDGES’ NOTES Art “outburst” "outburst" is what 2020 is currently: burning gasoline fuel and falling debris. We found that this was a very timely piece. On technicality, the artist did a remarkable job. The dystopian theme went well with a slightly symmetrical composition.

“After a Night of Coffee” This painting gives an insight into a reason why people should not drink coffee after dark. There are so many layers in this piece and a remarkable depth. Camila pointed out that you are able to see a face in the middle of the painting and I haven't quite been able to un-see it. The tone lends itself to a macabre-scene, similar to how a student might feel during an all-nighter in McKeldin.

"Waiting To Be Impressed" I really liked the softness of this painting. The cool tones and rounded paint strokes gave it a dream-like quality. The technicality in this piece is one of its strengths, and overall very well executed.

While the subject is waiting to be impressed, I already was.

Prose “And the Water Called Her” What a solid, evocative, and complex story. The speaker captures the elusive nature of family history, making the reader consider the narratives they carry. As the speaker beautifully says, the memories of the great grandmother “were anachronisms born by the lens of American history and culture that my older family has donned. I fear my great grandmother’s story is too knotted with the red, white, and blue of our present to ever be salvaged.” This writer hits at some incredible universal truths, including why we create stories in the first place, and the need to preserve where we come from.

“The Giant” This piece has solid writing and a keen eye for the important details that glue a story together. The writer carefully builds up the world and expectations, earning a wonderfully powerful ending. We all have different reasons we need to escape reality, and the speaker 8

effectively builds the backgrounds of the main characters here so that we understand their individual and personal needs for escape.

Even in the short space, I felt like I knew these characters well.

“A Less Preferable Alternative to Divorce” This piece stuck with me long after I read it. It is so unique and memorable with its wonderfully bizarre magical realism and great sense of humor. Underneath the fun premise of male family members becoming animals that must be housed at the zoo lies some thought-provoking commentary about the world we live in.

The speaker says: “My mother used to say there was no point in changing ourselves—we were women, and mothers, that was strange enough.” This writer definitely has their own inventive perspective.

Poetry “Docility in Limbo” and “i’ve been meaning to write to you again / 63.4 miles” “Docility in Limbo” mirrors the fire it describes, building into a tremendous poetic achievement. You can hear the poem crackle, roar, be quenched; then when you have to read it for a second time, because it’s just so good you might have missed something, the fire reignites. “i’ve been meaning to write you again / 63.4 miles” eloquently captures early-adulthood, when adolescence is still in the rearview mirror. It’s a very true-to-life poem, and its earnest and genuine questioning was immensely moving.

“I saw ‘Quan at the Family Dollar last weekend” The conversational tone and quotidian details of this poem belie the subject matter of such an immense theme as racial injustice, and this is its victory. We are anchored from the first moment of this poem, and it elegantly expands. The transition to direct address is stunning.

This was written by a Poet, capital P. “Rape Poem Epilogue: for the Next One” This poem’s linked similes build upon each other to say the unspeakable. The sentiment expressed radiates from the poem—that life is never the same after such a tragedy, and it impacts more than the victim or survivor. But that it tells this in such a vivid, imagistic way results in a true poetic success.

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lost in reality, Alice Bi, photograph

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Holdback Rahul Jain

A hefty grand piano supports the dreary weight of a melody. There is a tangible defeat in the lyrics: “I’m not unhappy, just unhappy words don’t break back.” They tackle the lack of meaning in revenge. Jain’s piece ends in an ocean of vocal modulation that questions whether there’s any human left.

Breathe Robert Wolle

Over the course of seven minutes, the stems build up into a family of synths that drown the room. It feels like a pause from the everyday.

There is an ethereal cry hiding behind this instrumental; find it and wonder about forces bigger than yourself.

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March the First S.C. Giedzinski Upon that fated frozen March the first I danced on sugared fields to a tree At last I made my union with the earth She wore the ice and sleet from clouds dispersed A gown of swords aglow for all to see Upon that fated frozen March the first And so I stood below and spoke a curse A wish that I could dress in snow as she At last I made my union with the earth One crystal leaving not a drop for thirst Did shiver, snap, and shimmer over me Upon that fated frozen March the first Through shoulder from above my heart was burst I sunk in reddened snow to both my knees At last I made my union with the earth.

My lips to permafrost forever pursed A corpse of ice and bone I’ll always be Upon that fated frozen March the first At last I made my union with the earth

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The Giant Nina Holtz “Do you think that if you take the shells off snails they become slugs?” Zoe asked as she balanced on the slick stones at the edge of the creek. It was a hot day in mid-July and crickets whirred in the trees like a pulsing heartbeat.

“Snails and slugs are totally different things,” Benji said. He had picked up a twisted branch from the ground and was using it as a walking stick, poking at leaves and moving rocks out of the way.

“Besides, snails are attached to their shells, like turtles.”

“I thought they were like hermit crabs. Hermit crabs have to move into bigger shells when they get older.” She hopped from one stone to the next as they moved down the creek, arms outstretched to balance. She’d gone through a growth spurt over the summer, and now stood half a head taller than Benji. Sometimes, the pain in her legs was so bad at night that she could only hug her knees to herself and cry until she fell asleep. The result was all elbows and angles, with clothes that were somehow both too small and too big at the same time.

“How long do you think until we get there?” she asked Benji. That afternoon, they had embarked on a mission to find what was at the end of the creek, but after 45 minutes of walking they were beginning to lose hope.

“Almost there,” Benji said, although he didn’t know the answer. In contrast to Zoe he was short and stocky, with dark eyes and messy black hair. He’d spent the past few weeks trying not to think about how Zoe was now taller than him.

They fell into silence, enjoying the sound of birds overhead. After another ten minutes, the trees fell away, revealing a large clearing in the woods.

“A lake!” Zoe exclaimed, running forward. The thin stream of the creek widened into a pool of water covered in a layer of green algae.

It stretched across the clearing, the few parts free of algae sparkling in the sunlight.

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“Zoe, look!” Benji said, pointing behind the lake.

Stretched out on the opposite side of the water was a sleeping giant.

His face was lined and angular, as though carved out of stone, his mouth a jagged slash. His eyes were closed, and his hair fell down in ragged clumps around his ears. He seemed to be wearing simple clothing, but it was hard to tell because of the leaves and dirt that covered his form. As he lay on his side on the ground, they could see the faint rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Most impressive was his size. Zoe was as tall as his big toe.

“Is that—” Zoe began, but Benji quickly covered her mouth with his hand, pressing a finger to his lips.

“We don’t want to wake him up,” Benji whispered. Zoe nodded her understanding and he dropped his hand.

“—a giant?” she whispered, finishing her sentence.

“Looks like it,” Benji whispered back.

“A giant,” Zoe repeated, her eyes wide with wonder. She rocked back and forth on her feet, filling with energy. “We found a giant!”

“We can’t tell anyone,” Benji said, still keeping his voice low.

Zoe frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s in all the books. When you find something magical, you’re not supposed to tell anyone. It’s like government experiments, or they think you’re crazy,” Benji said.

“Alright.” Zoe nodded. “Should we make a blood pact or something then?”

Benji paled. “Can we do a blood pact with no blood?” he asked weakly.

Zoe paused, thinking for a moment. Then she walked up to the lake and scooped a handful of algae out of the water. It coated her fingers in a green sludge. She held up her palm to Benji, and he clasped his hand to hers, the algae squishing between their fingers.

“Repeat after me,” she said. “I swear…”

“I swear…” Benji repeated.

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“To tell no one about the giant.”

“To tell no one about the giant.”

“To show no one the lake.”

“To show no one the lake.”

“To protect the giant unless he’s bad.”

“To protect the giant unless he’s bad.”

“And to do whatever Zoe tells me to.”

“What! No!” “Amen.”

“Amen.”

They pulled their hands apart, and turned to look at the giant. He hadn’t moved, though their voices had grown gradually louder. As they watched, he let out a deep exhale, and they breathed out in return. **** When Zoe returned home, the lights were off. She let herself in with the key hidden in the ceramic frog by the doorway. The inside of the house was quiet, the only sound the distant echo of the TV coming from her mother’s bedroom. She peeked into the room. Her mother was lying in bed, her form outlined by the dying evening sunlight coming through cracks in the blinds. Her eyes were focused on the TV, face appearing like a skeleton’s as it flashed blue, red, blue, from the colors of the screen. Empty pill bottles and dirty plates piled on the dresser and bed.

“Mom?” Zoe asked.

Her mother turned to see her. “Oh, Zoe,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m feeling very tired today. Could you make yourself dinner?”

“Okay,” Zoe said. She closed the door the room.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink. She opened the freezer door and sifted through its contents before pulling out a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, which she stuck in the microwave. The machine whirred 15

and spun the bag in a slow circle. When the chicken was done, she sat down on the couch and flipped through the channels, passing Disney, Nickelodeon, PBSkids, before settling on Shark Week. On screen, a Great White Shark closed its jaws around a seal, leaking blood into the water like ink. Zoe bit into a half-frozen nugget, chewed. The british narrator explained that sharks shake their heads to rip of chunks off flesh, killing their prey by shredding it to pieces.

The seal’s tail flailed once, before its body fell limp. Zoe looked down at the chicken nugget in her hand and put it back in the bag.

“Zoe?” Zoe looked up. Her mother was standing in the hallway, hugging a blue bathrobe around herself. Her hair hung in thin strands to her shoulders. “What are you watching?”

“Shark Week.”

“Oh.” Her mother frowned. “Alright.” She turned and walked into the bathroom.

Bits of seal flesh floated in the water. Zoe changed the channel.

Benji walked home in the fading summer sunlight. Rows of houses lined the sidewalk, and he missed the fresh smell of the woods. His house was at the edge of a cul-de-sac, a cramped three-bedroom home with a rusted tricycle sitting out on the lawn. The door was unlocked.

The moment Benji stepped inside he heard the signature sound of Kate screaming. She screamed when Benji’s mother opened the bag of frozen peas, she screamed as the peas were boiled, she screamed as the peas were put on the table, she screamed as she was stuffed in the high chair, she screamed as the peas were put in front of her, she screamed as Benji’s dad pretended to be an airplane, she screamed when the peas were removed and replaced with carrots, and she continued to scream as the rest of the family gave up and ignored her. Benji’s younger brother, Liam, meanwhile, was busy individually crushing each pea with his fork, which he then pushed together on his plate to create an enormous pile of pea sludge. He then ate the sludge with his mouth open while making gurgling noises and pretending to be an alien.

Benji finished his dinner in silence, then asked his mother if he could be excused. She responded with a wave of her hand, once again 16

absorbed in trying to get Kate to eat her vegetables.

Benji went up to his room, where he spent a satisfying hour organizing his Pokemon cards first alphabetically, then by type, then by the relative shininess of the cards. He then moved on to his bookshelf, which he re-organized by color. He knew tomorrow he would put it back in alphabetical order by author (the most practical system), but for now he sat back and enjoyed the rainbow array on his shelf. That night he dreamed a giant picked him up and put him on its shoulder, and together they wandered the Earth. **** “We should name him,” Zoe said, as they sat on top of the giant and looked out over the forest. It had taken them a week to build up the courage to climb onto the giant, beginning with Zoe hurling a rock at the his head to see if he would wake up (while Benji ran in the opposite direction). Now, they were confident that nothing would cause him to stir, and felt content as they relaxed and enjoyed the gentle rocking of his breathing.

Benji paused, thinking. He was lying on his back and using his bag as a pillow. “What about Jack?”

“Jack? You can’t name a giant after a giant killer!” Zoe exclaimed.

“Well it should be something giant-related. What about Andre the Giant, like that guy from the Princess Bride?”

Zoe jumped up, brandishing a stick she had found earlier as a sword.

“My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father, prepare to die!”

She started hitting his legs and arms with the stick until he stood up as well.

“No fair! I’m unarmed,” Benji complained.

“Use your backpack as a shield,” she said, dancing back and forth while hitting him with the stick.

Taking her advice, he grabbed his bag to defend himself. “The backpack is only defense. I need a weapon!” He ducked as the stick went over his head, swiping at his hair.

“Prepare to die!” she yelled again, hitting him harder with the stick.

He howled and dropped the backpack, trying to grab the stick out 17

of hands. The wrestled together for it, scratching and kicking. Benji pulled the stick toward him, but his feet slipped, and suddenly they were both tumbling down the side of the giant and falling into the lake below.

Benji hit the water first, soaking his clothes and catching wet leaves in his hair. Zoe followed after with a splash. There was a panicked moment where she couldn’t find the surface, until her feet hit the ground, and she stood up. From where they were standing in the lake, the water went up to their chests.

Zoe started laughing first. A giggle that turned into laughing so hard that she couldn’t breath, only letting out small gasps as she flailed in the water.

Benji started laughing too, helpless at the state of his hair and clothes. “My mom’s going to be so mad,” Benji said, shaking his head and smiling.

Zoe’s laughter died. “Yeah. Mine too.” **** “Your dad and I have an announcement,” Benji’s mother said at dinner, as Kate continued to scream in the background. Liam paused pouring orange juice over his rice to look up, and Benji stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth.

Benji’s parents glanced at each other. His father gestured at his mother to continue speaking. His mother put on a smile and looked around the table. “You’re all going to have a new baby brother or sister!”

There was silence around the table, except for Kate who was still screaming.

“Oh,” Benji said, putting his fork back down on his plate. “May I please be excused?” **** It was beautiful on the giant’s back. He was as big as the tallest trees, and they could look out and see the rows of houses that bordered the forest. In the other direction, the woods stretched out for miles, ending in a haze of blue mountains. It was also cooler high up, and 18

the breeze relieved the heat of the summer sun. They made the walk to the giant almost every day, and had begun to hide snacks and interesting rocks in his beard, which hung down in a thick curtain almost to the ground.

More often, they would enjoy the view in silence, only speaking to pass the water bottle back and forth. Both of them had grown tan and athletic from exploring the forest and from so many hours and climbing up and down the giant.

“Hey,” Zoe said, catching Benji’s attention and breaking the silence.

He turned to see she was holding a thin white cigarette in her hand, which glowed in the sunlight. “I found this in my mom’s things. Do you want to try smoking it?”

Benji plucked the cigarette out of her hands and threw it down into the lake below.

“Hey!” Zoe exclaimed, about to protest. She looked at the dark expression in Benji’s eyes and stopped her words. They lapsed back into silence. **** One day, they both fell asleep in the sun and woke up to darkness.

There were more stars than either of them had ever seen before.

From their place so high up above the forest, it seemed like they could reach up and pluck a star down from the sky as easily as changing a lightbulb. The moon, too, seemed close, its wide face peering down as if curious to see the children and their giant.

Transfixed by the glow of the galaxy, they forgot all about worried parents. Their fingers inched closer together, and they held hands as they watched the stars. The moon guided them home through a forest filled with blue trees and dark wings. **** Benji’s mother opened the door before he finished climbing the steps to the house.

“Where have you been?” she said, her face twisted in worry.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, still dazed by the moon. “I was out with Zoe.” 19

She ushered him inside and sat him down at the table. There was a whirring sound as the microwave heated up his dinner. When she put the plate down in front of him, peas rolled out onto the table.

“Promise me you won’t ever do that again, okay? I’m serious. I was really really worried about you.”

“I promise. I’m sorry.” He moved the peas around on his plate with a fork.

“You know your dad and I love you, right, Benji? So much.”

Benji looked down at his plate, feeling embarrassed. “I know.” **** The house was darker than usual when Zoe got home. The doorways looked hollow and empty, like open mouths. The only light spilled out from the bathroom, creating a yellow rectangle on the opposite wall.

“Mom?” Zoe said, walking toward the bathroom. There was no response, so she sped up, rushing to see inside the room.

Her mother was bent over the bathtub, her mouth crusted white and vomit filling the tub below.

“Mom?” Zoe repeated. She shook her mother’s shoulder, but there was no response. Desperate, she shook her harder. Her mother’s body slid to the floor, her eyes half open and fluttering, gazing at the ceiling above. Zoe had a flash of an image of the seal, limp in the shark’s jaws. She ran to the phone. **** Zoe didn’t meet Benji at the edge of the forest for two weeks. Finally, on the last day of summer, he knocked on her door. An unfamiliar woman opened it.

“Um…is Zoe home?” Benji asked.

“Just one second,” the woman said, disappearing inside.

After a moment, Zoe came to the door. She looked tired, her face pale and hair thin. “That’s my aunt,” she said. “My mom’s not feeling good, so she’s staying with us for a bit.”

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Benji nodded, unsure of how to respond. “Do you want to go to the lake?” he asked.

She looked at him blankly, as though not processing the question.

Then said, “Okay.”

They walked through the forest in silence, although this silence was somehow new and strange. It wasn’t the comfort of their old silence.

Benji wanted to ask her what she thought about snails and slugs, but couldn’t get the words past his lips.

After an hour of walking, they finally reached the lake. Benji breathed out a sigh, relieved that the giant was still there after their absence. His craggy face was fast asleep, and a few birds were picking through the snacks they had left in his beard.

“Listen, I don’t really want to climb up some rocks right now, so could we actually just go back?” Zoe said.

Benji’s heart stopped. “Some rocks?”

“Yeah, we’ve been climbing up and down that dumb pile of rocks all summer, and I just don’t feel like it today. I’m tired.”

“What about the giant?”

“What?”

Unbidden, tears filled Benji’s eyes. He blinked them away quickly.

“I—” he said, but couldn’t finish the sentence. There was a great rumbling that shook the ground and Benji stumbled, throwing out his arms for support.

Benji turned to look at the giant, who was moving. The giant’s frozen joints let out a loud creaking sound as they began to bend.

Dirt, sticks, and leaves showered off his body as his form rose. He extended his arms over his head, and he let out a yawn that shook the trees. The rocky formations of his eyelids opened, revealing bright blue eyes that swept across the forest as he observed his surroundings. Apparently not seeing Zoe and Benji, he turned away, and now fully upright, walked in the direction that lead to the mountains. Each step caused an earthquake that shook Benji’s balance all over again. In just four enormous steps he was already far in the distance, shrieking birds circling his fading form.

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Zoe and Benji stared at the space he had left.

“I need to get back to my mom,” Zoe finally said.

“Yeah,” Benji said. “Okay.”

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Liftoff, Jacy Zhang, photograph

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Summer Is Adrienne Stovall Heavy flies trapeze-ing from window to window, me fly hunting with the vacuum, and the tick of the fan as it parade waves from me, to you, and then back again.

We tire of coming up with insults for each other, so we melt down our chairs so far, our butts hang off our seats and we flop to the floor.

We wander to the porch, watch barn swallows swoop over the lumber yard and chicory, and we decide to ride our bikes down Roger Road.

We speed down the hill covered in potholes, warped like Route 12 after a hurricane, with no time for common sense, or hands on handlebars.

Dust covers the amethyst phlox and goldenrod, as they spill into the gravel road, that winds along the Little River, like double yellow lines on the black top, or synchronized swimmers.

A beetle hits me in the eye sending us into hysterics, and startles a blue heron that lifts out of the water flying south towards what we call Pride Rock.

Two miles down the road, the sweet smell of manure means we’re getting close.

One more washboard curve to the feed store and gas station beside the highway.

Cattle farmers with bottom lips bulging and Wranglers and Kiltie boots, offer to pump gas, and the ding of the front door brings the owner to the register.

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We open the smooth door of the freezer chest, cool air blows our wispies away from our temples.

Orange push pop for me, Mickey Mouse for you.

The owner’s wife, with crystal clear glasses and pastel pressed pants, tips her chin—“say hi to your mother for me.”

We pop kickstands, and I spit out wet cardboard as we ride, the cicada’s trill in the treetops, above us like stars, and we sing “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie,”

at the top of our lungs.

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Waiting To Be Impressed, Cassiel Arcilla, acrylic on canvas

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You’re a Winner S.C. Giedzinski There you are! It’s about time. Don’t look so surprised; you knew I was on my way. I emailed you. You remember, we emailed. You saw, didn’t you? Shit. Oh, that’s not good. Well if this building hasn’t had Internet in three days, you haven’t heard the news. You haven’t heard! I should come inside. Yes, excuse you. I’m coming inside.

Oh, wow. Really, this is your apartment? We’re gonna have to tidy up a little, aren’t we? Do you live alone? That figures. Got family living nearby? Oh. I understand. What a shame. My kids won’t speak to me either.

Give me a second to take off my coat. I’ve got the email right here on my phone. I’ll read it out to you. One second. Yeah, here we go: ‘Dear Lucky Contestant, On behalf of myself, the United States Entertainment Commission… blah, blah, network partners, corporate sponsors, blah, blah… congratulations! You have been selected as this month’s winner of the Instant Celebrity National Lottery. In a few days, we will send a press team to your residence and begin your journey into fame. In the meantime, please be patient, and do not disclose this information before meeting… Blah, blah, whatever.’

You get the picture. You’re this month’s big winner, and we’re gonna make you famous. No, this isn’t a joke. I have all your paperwork on file, and everything is in order. Who am I, then? Like you don’t know? I’m your fame advisor! Don’t worry, I’ve been in the business for almost ten years, going all the way back to the passage of the Federal Celebrity Management Act and the founding of the US Entertainment Commission. I’ve got a great team of experts working for me, too. They’re on the way up with some basic equipment. They would’ve come in with me, but apparently your building’s elevator is broken.

While we’re waiting a minute, did you opt-in to the cancelation insurance policy that USEC recommends? It was a little check box, right on your lottery form next to the terms and conditions. Not necessary, but it is recommended for anyone who’s newly famous.

You know, if you’ve got skeletons that might slip out of your closet.

27

No judgement. We’ve all been young, right? Okay, we can’t force you to opt-in. I didn’t see any red flags on your background check. Big points to you; you’re neither a racist nor a rapist.

And here they are now! Go on and open the door for my team.

(Come on inside. Yeah, I know it’s a mess. Stevie, get the servers up and plugged into the generator. You can run it on the back porch.

Yeah, it’s a small apartment, I know. Nancy and Andrea, get our client into hair and makeup. We have a lot of work to do.)

So what’s your look? We need to nail down your style before we reveal you to the world. Are you the straight edge working stiff? Or a rough blue-collar underdog? Maybe something younger. You can’t be that old, can you? Twenty-five? I don’t care, you’re twenty-five.

(Davis! Hop on Wikipedia and get our client’s page online. Age twenty-five, make sure it says so.)

So you’re still young. You can be modern, avant-garde! 80s throwback jackets, flashy colors. Unless you’d prefer something darker, to keep with the times. I mean, the world’s probably ending soon, isn’t it? Plenty of celebrities tend towards a goth look; it keeps them mysterious or edgy in the public eye. We can put together anything you’d like to try, but first I want to see what you have here already. Take me to your wardrobe. Where is it? Oh, you’re kidding.

It’s only that pile? In that corner, that’s all of your clothing?

(Benny! Hey! Toss all those clothes in a bag. Donate them, burn them, whatever. Send Maria and Jaden down to the mall, and have them bring back something for our client to wear in public. Make it flashy, but relatable.)

People want to connect with celebrity style, but they don’t want to be disgusted. Oh that’s no offense to you; I’m sure those rags looked great a few seasons ago.

(Francine, toss me a mirror!)

Here, see what Andrea’s done with your hair? Are you kidding? Long hair is out, the shorter looks are in. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.

Don’t you feel lighter already? Okay, fine. It’ll grow back. We can get you a wig, if you really want.

(Owen! Call up your buddies at Hair Weekly, see if they want to 28

sponsor a wig for our client. No, not anything ridiculous. Just make it look like it was before. When? Two minutes ago, before Andrea chopped it off!)

There’s someone I need you to meet. This is Robin, she’s here with Vogue. Tell her about your skincare routine. Oh. Oh no. Okay, do not tell her that.

(Robin! Write up something believable, and we’ll buy the products to make it a new daily routine for our client. It’s not fake news, come on! It’s pre-news!)

Moving right along, here’s Tom from Buzzfeed. He needs your Twitter handle. You’ll be verified in a couple hours, and he’s gonna put out a list of your sixteen all-time funniest tweets before then. A private account? Jesus, do you even want to be famous? Get out your phone and make it public. Better yet, give me your password. There.

I’ll have Reggie take care of that while you talk to Jamie. Jamie’s a correspondent with NBC. He just wants a real quick word from you on the current state of affairs in Gaza. What do you think of a twostate solution? Are you a Zionist? Oh, really. Hm, I never thought of it all like that. It doesn’t have to be so complicated! As a celebrity, you have to be political. People love strong opinions. You can take a vague stance as long as you never change it.

(Reggie! Here’s our client’s Twitter password. Make it public, change the bio, fix the profile and header photos. I don’t care, anything that won’t make my eyes bleed. We’ll take proper headshots in a few minutes. Oh, already? Excellent.)

Great news! We just rolled out your introductory posts on USEC’s social media. You have two—no, three thousand new Twitter followers, five hundred Facebook friend requests, and eight hundred new followers on Instagram. There are some mentions of you on TikTok, so you’re clearly popular with the kids. You also have an unofficial fan page. We’ll make an official one, too.

(Ah, Henry! Yeah, we’ve got a second. Come on over here.)

This is Henry. He wants you to hold this. No, don’t drink it, do you even know what’s in that can? Alright, say cheese. Perfect. One more. Another. Now a silly one. Love it. We’re putting you in an ad campaign for this new energy drink. Yeah, the one you’re holding. It 29

uses a new synthetic stimulant that isn’t FDA regulated yet. Kids love it, and there have hardly been any deaths, so the ad campaign will be a breeze. And you’ll make your cut of the money, don’t worry. Ten percent, I think. Fifty for Henry’s company, twenty for me, five for USEC, ten for the networks, and five to the compensation fund for the families of the victims. We’ll put your name on that too—make you look charitable.

(Henry, you hear that? Ten percent for our client. No funny business like last time.)

What’s that on your phone? Oh, you have a text message. Show me who it’s from. Really? That jealous hag is your mother? Hey, back off. I’m not assuming anything. It’s perfectly obvious. You told me that your family doesn’t talk to you anymore, yet here we are: Ten minutes later, there’s a text from Ma. Don’t let the “Congratulations” fool you. If the old woman has any sense at all, she knows how much advertising money you’ll earn by the end of this quarter.

You remember Hal, the bicyclist from San Francisco who won the lottery last February? He made eight million bucks from his first two months of Peloton ads. You remember what happened next?

His daughter cut the rear brake wire on his seventeen-speed. Next morning, Hal went flying down Bradford street and launched himself through the window of grocery shop. By the time the police figured out what his daughter did, she already blew her whole inheritance on stilettos and cocaine. Is your mom gonna do something like that too? Maybe. So don’t talk to her.

There’s nothing wrong with being unattached, you know. That’s what got you here! Most people in healthy long-term relationships don’t play the Instant Celebrity National Lottery. Clearly you want more for your life. You want excitement, and we’re here to provide.

What? Say that again; I was talking over you. Oh, so you are seeing someone! But not really? Talking, what does talking mean? Show me a picture of this crush you’ve got. Pull up Instagram. Come on, you’re joking. You’re chasing someone who looks like that, and who only has five hundred followers? Don’t be stupid, you can do better.

Come on, you’re famous now. We’ll make you a match that you can’t refuse. Remember the lottery winner from last August? No, not the one whose nudes leaked. No, not the one who overdosed. I’m talking about the one with the tall hair and the arm tattoo. Here, see? There’s a good picture. Out of your league? You’re hilarious. You 30

really do make me laugh.

(Tamara, you hear that? Our client doesn’t wanna get with last August’s winner. I know, that’s what I said! Let’s make it happen. Set them up for a date next Tuesday. Pick a good place in Manhattan.

Tip off your friends at TMZ, and make sure they get plenty of photos from at least three blocks away. Or just deepfake their faces onto some other couple. You can photoshop the whole thing? Then do that; that’s perfect. Cancel the date, just leak the photos to TMZ.) Okay, alright, quit blabbering about this low-life crush of yours. You can’t date someone who isn’t a celebrity too. That’s the fastest way to stop being famous. People want to see romance, scandals, and debauchery, but only between people they love and understand.

Whoever you’re talking to is now—I’m sorry to say—just another one of your adoring fans. A speck on your radar, just like your mom. Can you send one last direct message, just to be clear that you’re breaking things off? Actually, never mind. I’ll have Reggie take care of that for you. Don’t be so dramatic; you’ll get over it.

(Gertrude, what’s our client’s schedule for tomorrow morning? What about Good Morning America? You’re kidding. Since when are three morning shows ‘more than enough?’ Get ABC on the line, see if they can cut that awful climate activist from tomorrow’s lineup. Katy! Get the jet ready, and file a flight plan for New York this evening. Rob, book our client a suite at the Ritz-Carleton for tonight and tomorrow.

We are in press tour overdrive for the next forty-eight hours!

Cynthia, do you have any spare Adderall on you? Powder some more in my water bottle, will you? And make a separate one for our client.

Hey! Gene, where’s our client? Attention! Has anyone seen—) Ah. There you are. Where do you think you’re going? No, you can’t leave! Fresh air, really? I’ve heard that excuse a million times. Get back inside! You can’t be seen in public until Maria and Jaden come back from the mall with your new wardrobe. Excuse me? Yes, you do care. I am your fame advisor, and I will not have you prancing around like some shmuck in those rags. No, you can’t just quit. You signed a contract when you entered the Lottery. Like it or not, you are this country’s newest celebrity.

Oh, will you shut up already? Listen here. You know why I love this job? You know what keeps me going? Because believe it or not, I don’t want to parade you from coast to coast like some prize 31

pumpkin. I don’t want to stay up all night planning your day-to-day schedule. I don’t want to be here in this nasty apartment, where we can’t even run a decent Internet connection. I’m only here because you—USEC’s carefully-selected winner, chosen completely at random—are about to make millions or billions of dollars. And you signed a contract that’ll pay me twenty percent of your lifelong earnings henceforth. So I suggest you suck it up, listen up, and do as I do: smile, obey, and get rich.

(Hey! Whose phone do I hear? How many times do I have to tell you people: ringers stay off while we’re on the clock! Norm, is that your phone? Good. That would be your third strike. Kelly, phone? Show me that it’s not ringing. Fine, you get to keep your job today. Where’s the damn phone? Shut it off! Oh, hold on. I think it’s mine.)

Fuck. It’s the Secretary of Entertainment again. I gotta take this. You stay right here. Try to leave again, and I’ll have to fire somebody. We don’t want that, do we?

(Madame Secretary? Yes, sorry for the delay. No, I haven’t seen what’s trending. What do you mean? Already? We’ve only been online for fifteen minutes. Well, Reggie should have talked to me first. Are we sure it’s a cancel call? No one’s ever been canceled that quickly. What’s the accusation? Yeah, I remember last year. Oh, come on! The ugly comedian? Everyone tweeted something nasty when we canceled that guy. I don’t care if he was acquitted; I know what he did to that kid. Whatever. So they’re canceling my client for participating in cancel culture? Well of course they don’t think it’s hypocritical. Fine. If you’re pulling the plug, I’m right there with you.

Alright. Talk soon.)

Jackasses. You didn’t hear any of that, did you?

(Listen up! Everyone, I need your attention! Our client has been publicly canceled. I know this is a shock, but everything is going to be fine. I have orders from the Secretary to pull the plug on this operation. Stevie, break down the servers and pack up the generator.

Nancy, Andrea, don’t bother cleaning up that hair on the floor.

Davis, update our client’s Wikipedia page with information on the controversy at hand. Benny, put our client’s old clothes back where you found them. Seriously? You burned them already? Probably for the better. Ah! Maria and Jaden, right on time. Head back to the mall, return all those clothes. I hope you have the receipts. Francine, 32

where’s my water bottle? Owen! Cancel the wig order. Robin, Tom, Jamie, you know what to do. We’re writing hit pieces now, so gather as much dirt as you can. Reggie, delete our client’s Twitter account.

Henry, I’m sorry about your ad campaign, but you’ve got a bigger storm coming with those sketchy energy drinks. Tamara, you hear me too? Stop drinking that garbage. Gertrude, cancel the morning show appearances. Oh, G.M.A. already pulled the climate activist?

Whatever, they’ll find someone better. Rob, cancel the reservation at the Ritz. Cynthia, I want two more pills crushed into my water, immediately. And Gene, you’re fired.)

As for you, well, I think you got what you wanted. Since you didn’t opt-in to a cancelation insurance policy, your contract with USEC is now void. You’re no longer entitled to any monetary compensation, and we might sue you for lost time and financial damages. Oh, don’t be such a baby about it! People get canceled every day. Look on the bright side! You’re not famous anymore. Keep walking around wearing whatever clothes you drag up from the far corner of your bedroom—except for the ones we burned, I mean. Keep styling your hair as you like it—once it all grows back, of course. And keep talking to whomever you like—just not your crush from earlier today, since Reggie already sent that breakup text for you.

Well, I should be going. USEC will have to pick a secondary winner for this month, which means they’ll send us on a new assignment any second. Have a great day. Sorry for the mess.

(Who else is ready to go home? Oh, I know. What a loser.)

33

The Eyes Haoran Li and Hadas Sandalon

A short piece visualized by Li and scored by Sandalon. The antique and modern clips, focused around the eyes, are entrancing. The mystical music is emotion-provoking. What do you see?

The Flower Bethel Afful

By the time the melody reaches the chorus, it has grown beyond its time. Afful wonders, “Don’t know who you think you are to tell me how I feel,” as the keyboard synthesizer rakes petals from a flower.

The internal conflict is uncomfortably relatable and the production is so impressive that it leaves a mark on the soul.

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The Birth of Eve, Ekphrastic Callie Ingwersen Stripped of clothes and kingdom, she spirals as a marionette with five tendrils of twine, like the Briar Wood they creep around: trapped

is Aurora.

Trapped are her eyes in the back of her head,

she’s falling in her dark hollow like a womb,

she is secured:

the new Alice in Wonderland.

Tell me, am I fallen?

Will I be done on Earth as I was in Heaven?

These depths awaited: full of color, no matter how insidious.

This wallow:

a grisly greeting to her majesty’s garden.

Such is the making of a fallen woman.

Life after the fall from the graces of man,

she knows not:

for those five fingers whose owner she does

not see, but knows too well clutch her.

She’s frozen, for now, forever in the eye of the beholder.

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The opposite of the flood Matthew Herskovitz It hasn’t rained in a while.

I notice my windshield needs cleaning after hitting too many bugs at 80mph.

Nearly being pulled over on the beltway gives me time to see the smudges that they’ve made. Trees off the shoulder remind me that we live on Earth, that we tore down trees to build the beltway, that it rained and washed mud all across the beltway and we couldn’t walk so we had to put trees back on the side of the beltway to hold back the mud; that we built nature, that we tore it down, told it I’m sorry for your loss I’ve bought you these flowers, mine that I’ve grown and paid on my way here to say goodbye. Garland crowns are only comfortable when you forget you’re wearing them. I wouldn’t want bugs in the leaves in my hair, I wouldn’t want hummingbirds in the flowers in the leaves in my hair, and Adam said to Eve I don’t like how this leaf rubs me and Eve said back right I agree let’s stick it to the man and do something about it; so snakes are endemic and are not unique.

Everyone has a tongue 36

but I often forget this until mine crashes into another and I remember everyone has a tongue to stick out and catch dimes on, to drop sugar on and down another shot of hot chocolate in April, look outside, pines wet from morning dew, muggy because it gets hot for one week sometimes. Storm clouds forget where they’re going, park alongside the road, ask the locals for directions as an excuse to make small talk, say, it hasn’t rained in a while, no, it hasn’t rained in a while in a while.

37

aphrodite Marjorie Antonio Love hands me Greek fire in an Ikea glass cup.

She tips it in the valley of my throat, And it razes my entire body electric.

Love pops an Altoid into the circle of her lips, Before baring her crooked teeth Into the swell of my Adam’s apple, Until I am left bleeding ichor lip-split, glass-eyed, vein-blue.

And Love slams the door.

reflections Paula Molina Acosta can i ask a mirror to tell me anything but what i already know? that my hands belong to some woman ten generations past, and my smile is taken from my mother’s mother who gave me also her tongue and teeth and passed down the essence of her own ancestress, which was thick, green blood stark against the dust of the dry season and yet boiling

38

candid, Mmesomachukwu Nnoruka, digital

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Evan is Beautiful, Dani Feng, acrylic on canvas

40

Remnants An aubade

Brooke Tweedie You held a beach in your hand and watched it fall through the cracks.

Finger-spaces swallowed sand like four hoping, fat-lipped mouths, ending in one big sea-stomach.

You were gritty with play, greedy for summer’s salt.

In the evenings you’d nurse sunburns on the porch with cheese and crackers and soda, your family’s chatter rustling with the leaves.

Never were the stories so sweet.

Your teeth would happily rot until the moths trailed darkness into the sky.

Remember the stars as flecks of dandruff or crumbs on a blue picnic blanket, how you’d pluck them up and decide.

These ones for flicking, These ones to eat. You didn’t know it— These were the scraps of your dreams.

Here is where they go to die, slurried up in a pale ochre sunrise that you gaze at through your bedroom window.

Even still you hear the waves knocking at night.

Ghostly ocean, foam tipped and fizzling, persistent as television static— You can bang on the clunky old box, but you can never really go back.

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PORTRAITS OF A HOME Miranda Donovan I. feel me in the bones of this town / i can sense her breathing / bones rattling the way mine do after one long drag of nicotine / oh my god nicotine how i miss you / you used to fuck me so goddamn well that / in the moonlight the moths would sing / streetlight crescendos that folded over my grey sunken skin / nicotine you made me beautiful in this town / the steam lines so full of lust that they too would sing for me / crying until they burst / a soft rain that would pour over my asphalt skin and drown me in a river of night sky / i am moving against the atoms in this town / pools of limestone and one countdown to matter / watch me wade through this destiny, now all up on my skin / like emerald moonbeams awakening / the goblet of youth spills / and seeps through the streets / take me home nicotine / home all the way back to 2005 / knock down that house the way it was supposed to come / down i watch it fall down the hill i watch the south river swallow it / and the marsh she cries / cattails wailing through the summer air / screams of who this town used to be released / that’s why that house had to go / don’t you understand what burned once will burn again / and this town is too fragile a place / to flash such pain to the passing stars / now raw from the boys who run through her / she caves under their red eyes / they fall into the sewers / greed dripping from the corners of their mouths / as they force another goblet of nicotine upon me / can’t you see i don’t want this / i don’t want to rely on these boys / who just want to fuck me / who see me in their mothers their sisters their mirrors / who think i am a grace hand delivered by god / go ahead and look at me like you think i don’t know i’m beautiful / i’ll take it / it’s all just for show anyways / the lines of my body / i drew them for you / collarbones neck ears lick them all / i can’t wait to see them go up in flames / when i light my cigarette / flick the ash into the night / and watch the bones of this town / drift ablaze through the streets

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II. the loss of a house is the same as the cutting of a lifeline. watch the heartrate monitor fall silent and the hospital beds burn. you are eighteen and the night is so dark that when you reach out, you can’t even feel your mother’s hands. the loss of a house means waking up in a series of beds: different spiderwebs that fill strangers’ basements and attics, the sour taste of someone else’s coffee on your tongue, awkward encounters on the staircase. you are only eighteen and your home is now a car black enough to disappear into the night and not be seen when it blinks back at you. there are paper bags in the trunk, one holding your mother’s friend’s sweater (to know this town is still yours), the house on mango street (to hold the closest thing you have to puerto rico in your hands), and a stuffed eeyore (to remember what once brought you comfort). your family sleeps an hour and a half away, so you roam through the days alone and out of breath until you can see them again. you watch several sunrises with red eyes because you are too scared to ask for some place to sleep. at eighteen, you do your make up before work in the giant parking lot and drive by the storage unit when you get off your twelve-hour shift. you wade through the fluorescence as if in a dream until you reach unit fortyfour where you sink down to the concrete floor and put your forehead to the metal grate. the past eighteen years sit behind there and you trick yourself into believing you can still smell them. instead, it is just the scent of one humid summer night trapped in the bright orange arms of a public storage sign. even then, you knew that this all will soon be rendered unmemorable in the scheme of a life. when you leave, you drive to the neighborhood that isn’t yours anymore. you walk through the night with your arms raised above your head until you reach the bluff’s edge. under the concavity of the night sky, the swaying weeds that overlook the chesapeake begin to weep and when you look down, there are so many rocks before the water’s edge but at eighteen you don’t think jumping would be so bad. after all, this town is on a peninsula and you never did swim enough. you wonder who determines who sinks and who swims in this world and if it’s worth finding out, alone on the bluff with nothing but the clothes on your back and the paper bags in your trunk. the loss of a house means the loss of a home and at eighteen you begin to wonder if it also means the loss of a life.

43

III. when i fall, let me fall fast. don’t pull me back from the chasm that is the past. this life of mine, a series of vignettes. it has always been inevitable that i would slip— into a hole in the night. watch my blood and stars ooze out but watch closely because they smear and when they smear a portrait will appear, a portrait of a home that has a magnolia out front. they say a magnolia will live for a hundred years and that i, too, should hope for the same. white blossom faces, a family tree: go ahead and stamp my name. tether me to it and help me to recall 2005 when i saw the magnolia for the first time. at five years old, the world is just a marsh and the lemonade eyelashes on my freckled legs. give it thirteen years— it will all implode. the gravel driveway will become a coffin and the sunsets that sang you to sleep will peel from the sky and hunt you. watch me roam these streets at nightfall, desperate to feel something again, even if just the feeling of eyes crawling over my bare skin as i pass or the cold creams and hand lotions and perfumes that hold together my skin. let’s go walk past the two mailboxes again, down the driveway that led to the magnolia, who bared her blossoms like teeth. the house, L-shaped, my room the vertex. the sloping hill. the footbridge to the river. i’d like to believe that the magnolia is watching over me, a ghostly apparition that sees me as one of her own. that tree raised me, her and the stars both. one to lift me up, one to take me down. it’s all gone now. i don’t know how much clearer i can make it. don’t you understand me? i have been ruined and now only take comfort in the temporary, in the fleeting, in the driving away. that house is gone, lost when that tidal wave violently ripped it all away, when it raised up from depths of the south river in the night and for one quaking moment, looked me in the eye and we forgave each other before it crashed down upon my body, my family, my life. understand that when the tidal wave says it’s over, not even your magnolia can save you.

44

IV. in my house, growing up meant growing in. it meant making space for those whose screams were louder than my own. there has never been enough room for the string music inside of me. so i take to the streets with everyone else. i slip out of my bedroom door and into the night. it is only under the streetlights and beside the shadows of strangers when i can begin to sing. on a street corner, under the green of the stoplight, the sobs come out and run rampantly through the night. the cars begin to slow with the honey of my tears. i sink to the sidewalk, shaking, bodies moving aside to let me melt in peace. i become a beam of light that scorches the yellow lines in the middle of the highway. the glass of windows from the apartments above burst into a thousand moths that descend from the sky. the moths encase my body and eat it away. i am moving to disappear, a flickering light on the horizon line, barefoot on the asphalt, faster and faster until exploding into a shower of stars that fall on the city. my song is a quiet humming. you can hear it if you close your eyes.

45

After a Night of Coffee, Balbina Yang, pen and ink on paper

46

like it never happened Alice Bi shared: the darkness squirming in veins, buried for too long burrowing out now— from resigned rasps to roaring coughs— finish your sentence politely or masked men will come kick down your door, wielding handcuffs and spray guns of ethanol. sanitize me. tared: the weight of loose eyeballs, blind or bloodied lumps torn from their sockets— dangling beneath my ever-growing-Pinnochio’s-nose —refuse to see the body bags dumped on hospital floors or cops will come lock you into a white van, join the corpses in their destined cremation. paralyze me. bared: a bigheaded leviathan body lumbering on, sickle cell anemic but still bearing a banner of hammer-stained red— beyond jingoist bells or joss stick spells— a conviction inoculative for a thousand years, zombify, lest the masses run freely, amok in these streets a viral fluency in feral ideas. euthanize me, before I cough again.

47

Blind Justice, Doron Tadmor, acrylic on canvas

48

LD50 of Rubber Bullets Daniel Zheng Toss the nets, cast the reel, clear the ocean floor— rig the traps, drag the seine, farm the sea for slaughter, and watch how the thousand corpses gasp and freeze to keep the fisherman’s hands pristine.

Death in the modern day must be more than remorseless murders of cannon fodder.

Can He forgive us, wipe our conscious, spare our minds for deceiving ourselves this deadly sin clean?

Answer.

Ask these gloved men to disillusion their rites and soil their hands for the world to see their mark on the preyed—

feel the last pulse, how blood pools

as the knife scores deep along the gut,

scales writhing against the calloused hands

catching and clipping veiny tripwires save the barbiturates and brass-tipped bullets as prescriptions for their guilt when they think twice about the world of senseless murders and the guilt of sensible ice.

49

Heat North Anatolian Fault

The abrasive synthesizer moves along its pattern, locking into the brain. This song embodies passion—“I love you baby. I love you baby,” they scream. You will soon be screaming along too, thinking about that one person who never actually left your mind. North Anatolian Fault brings the heat.

TWICE BORN Kevin Merrell

A stage name like SPITLAFLAIR only hints at the power behind this piece. “I’m a masochist, and you a massive bitch.” Merrell’s voice molds around your speakers like clay while the kick drum breaks waves through it. This is a selection from their 2020 project, “rear my ugly head.”

50

Bedsprings Matthew Herskovitz I bite down on iron, gnawing sheets to the point that I crack my teeth and swallow my own broken bits—

shards like dried Colgate.

I’ve been standing down beneath doorframes since airplanes dropped airplanes from the sky.

I’d open my mouth to scream if the propellers hadn’t caught my tongue, if my tongue weren’t cut by my teeth. Walls cannot offer comfort if they don’t mold to me like my bed.

Illness Meghan Lockwood illness hides among the rest of lifetime’s packaged contents with post cards and my favorite dress and memories long forgotten it sits out on the front porch step— that gift you never wanted and lingers like a dinner guest that leaves the bedroom haunted

51

Groupthink Rachel Grossman There were moths all around, blinded by headlights and blurry

marks of tears.

Each word, spit through dog teeth, Could have been a sweet kiss of flame on the neck.

The diamonds left around like hiccups in the chest Were alphabetical and dressed in black, But all they saw were rosebuds blooming in soft soil.

They were sewing cages out of bridal veils, And when a hand slipped an envelope, they ate it whole, Taking captivity as a silent dinner for romantic ladies And phantom heroes of the dark.

Such was the seduction of mind and soul, A marriage signed into being by watchful eyes and paint on

camera lenses.

With every inflection, every pause of the prism voice and its refractions, Another stitch was sewn into their stifling white gowns.

This was freedom like the devil balancing a halo atop his head.

He who made hurt animals safe by encouraging cowardice And burying riffraff in saddlebags of plantains.

This was steel walls, steel bars, perfect for reflecting on past and

future mistakes, Polished and bent into the flower petal rings That young girls yearn to wear.

There were thorns mistaken for lace and delicacy bound around Each tongue, and canvas set out to copy bruises was burned.

Thought of revolution, to break into dark passages and run out on

a dare?

The statement was overdressed.

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They thought of press and pearls sewn to the golden-tongued saint, And smells of rotten cassava fell away like hair from a bun In anticipation of the storm’s wind.

It rained, and tiny ships carried the sacrilege from sight.

Khaki suit jackets, in their uniform comfort, replaced dresses With exile, and set the free on wobbly heels, Clacking down an empty hallway.

Gentrified, But Not Forgotten Sasha Kahn These windows tell a history That many streets have known, Of poorer blocks in Baltimore From which the Whites had flown.

They sing a song of firemen Who kept the flames at bay, At shrapnel coated churches once The sheriffs had their way.

They whisper of the factories Which overnight shut down, And how the men who’d nailed themselves Were driven out of town.

They call for all the children who Would play upon their street, And mothers juicing lemonade In torrid summer heat.

They laugh about the curios In barred and shackled shops, But now their sacred neighborhood Employs its seventh Chop’t.

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Caterpillar Killer Linnea Cooley “George Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.�

-The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka As a child I pulled the legs off beetles and extracted the wings from unsuspecting dragonflies From the thorax to the abdomen, three joints; the tibia, the femur, and the claw Headless caterpillars the pop of an aphid between unyielding fingertips the dying twitch of a lion ant I lined up their tiny carcasses on the back porch At night, the moths fluttered around my bedroom window antennas twitching, they watched me through the window screen Before long, the dead caterpillars squirmed into my fever dreams and burrowed into my unwitting cranium the prick of their mandibles the guilty itch of their feet they crawled beneath the silken sheets and up and down my restless spine

54

Forest Ruins Spencer Chan

The sporadic beat is biting down on an evil. The explorative riff pulls you along into the forest, and there is no intention of looking back.

Why would you want to anyway? These ruins are haunted.

Inertia and Velocity Vivian Yeh

A short animation that portrays exactly what it intends—inertia and velocity. The simplicity of the twelve second video forces your attention into every detail, from the movement of the hanging strap to the variation in color. Everyone is travelling somewhere—what are you observing in the meanwhile?

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lands of my birth(s) Paula Molina Acosta i forget that this land did not birth me, that i was adopted into its freezing rain and colorless winters, which bear no fruit but bleached branches and the skeletal tangles of uncertain brambles— winters which soon are followed by thick, viscous springs that choke the air with flowers in every color and fade into an irrepressible green, vivid and enveloping, until the sun remembers and takes its crushing place above a crisp blue-gray-green river overseen by high bluffs and rolling hills infested with that same persistent green which encroaches upon the highway, and other manmade things, like a long-slumbering army awoken. i forget that this land is not mine, that i come from a different place which also has freezing rains sometimes but more often than not carries half-there mist that creeps through the mountains in the evening and is gone again by daybreak, scared away by a belligerent sun whose glare from behind the looming, mammoth clouds, which roll heavily through the valleys and sweep the tops of the mountain peaks, sets alight the canopy of a denser, hostile green, a forest-jungle crawling with strangely-colored creatures and the sweet-smelling wetness of dew, until the dry season ushers in the bluest sky and embraces the washed out mountains, their discolored soil peppered by yucca plants and brambles, which remind me of resilient things, 56

like goats and lizards and condors, which weather both the driest and the wettest seasons and belong to neither

57

Et in Arcadia Ego Katherine Gourianova Sniffling nose and little palms in a warm, gentle haze of sunlight.

The gaps in the leaves let her water shine second to only stars, second to only glittering night.

My little creek, but I was hers.

Watching my own hands reach out and touch her ever-changing flow.

What was I but a ripple?

What was I but devout?

I prayed, abbess of her waters, Barefoot, her smooth rocks cool underneath my feet and in my pockets Taken from their holy home.

Taken from her quiet rule.

They dried hollow and numb.

Only at her edge was I in her company.

She spoke once.

She washed animal bones up to her shore just where my feet had stood the day before.

Bleached. Cold. Dead.

My innocent hands lifted end.

Her water dripped down my fingers in sanguine spirulets.

I threw the life untold back into her depths.

It lay there, in water barely reaching my knees.

The next day gone.

But that life had lived, as I, in her Arcadia.

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Lady of the Lake, Riya Chaudhry, oil paste and gouache on paper

59

The Kids Are Alright Emily Ray The thwacking sound rang harshly in their ears as they huddled against each other in the cold darkness. Each boy felt the loud clack of the shot ring and reverberate against his skull like the harsh pounding of a snare drum. The kickback of the gun was much stronger than any of them had anticipated, and the echo it left in its wake felt like an insult to the soft and subtle sounds of the nighttime.

Jordan barely registered the hooting of an owl and the skittering of small feet through the tree branches above their heads.

They stood over the limp form with a mixture of fascination and feigned disgust.

“Do you think it’s dead?” Jordan asked, his round eyes widening with concern. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

The doe lay still against the hard dirt. Underneath its body was a smattering of leaves that glistened like tin foil in the moonlight. Even in the darkness, the boys couldn’t fail to notice the thick blood oozing onto the ground like rainwater. They stood in a semi-circle around the defeated form, shielding the body with a human tent made of their heavy winter jackets. The aggressive, early December air hissed through the trees in Lachlan’s Forest and twelve year old Billy Riderman curled his fingers defensively around the large Timber Classic Marlin 336C he’d stolen from his father’s shed.

“Yeah, it’s dead.” Billy put his hands on his hips definitively. “My dad says you can tell when their eyes don’t close anymore.”

“No, look,” Charlie whispered from somewhere behind Jordan. “It’s still breathing.”

Jordan bent further down. Though it was faint, the deer’s belly rose and fell ever so slightly as it tried to breathe. The boys had shot a clean hole into the upper edge of the animal’s chest but it still clung to consciousness with an upsettingly calm disposition.

Jordan put his hand on the doe’s taut stomach. The deer shuddered in response to his touch and flicked its eyes aggressively onto his face. The doe had wide, brown, marble-like eyes and he could see 60

into her pupils, enlarged with fear. For a split second, Jordan felt a wave of nausea fall over him. She forced her eyes back and offered her body in final surrender to the group of confused boys desperate to prove something insurmountable to no one in particular. **** Earlier that day, Billy had approached their lunch table with a deeply set smirk stretching across his bespeckled face. He sat down at the edge of the grey table with a self-assured thump and pulled out the crinkled brown paper bag he’d had stored in his backpack. Before he began unloading the innards of his lunch, he looked over to Kundan’s small Tupperware container of yellow rice and crinkled his small, button nose.

“What the hell is that, Condom?” He asked, pointing at the plastic box.

“Basmati Rice.” Kundan didn’t look up from his food.

Unsettled by the lack of attention his statement had gained him, Billy began to pull out the squashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich Jordan could only assume he’d made himself. He knew Billy’s mom worked night shifts at the hospital and the image of Billy’s father packing a bag lunch made Jordan want to laugh. The sandwich was the only thing in the brown bag apart from a neon green bottle of Mountain Dew and three long silver bullets which Billy smacked onto the middle of the table proudly.

Everybody bounced backwards in shock as the bullets rolled against each other on the table.

“What the fuck, Billy? You can’t have that here.” Charlie leaned forward to shield the bullets with his body. He began pushing them back towards Billy who only grinned.

“They’re my dad’s.” The dimples he had on the side of his face poked out from behind his wide smile. **** Without fully realizing what he was doing, Jordan placed his finger over the bloody hole they’d shot into the deer’s chest and watched as his pale finger turned dark and stained by the animal’s blood. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in blind fascination as the 61

slick liquid ran through the ridges of the skin on his hand. Behind him he heard retching and the sharp stench of bile stung the air.

“Ew, Condom. What’s wrong with you?” Billy jeered.

Jordan lifted himself from his haunches and turned towards his friend. He wiped his finger on the corner of his jacket and watched Kundan stand crouched over and unmoving.

“Hey,” Charlie took a step towards Kundan and gently put his hand on his shoulder. “Are you ok?”

Charlie’s dark hair shone in the moonlight as it fell over his forehead in shaggy clumps. He was one of those boys who would always be handsome, regardless of age, with light hazel eyes and a gentle demeanor that made him exasperatingly approachable. Although Charlie was an indisputably pleasant kid, Jordan had spent the greater part of their friendship trying to understand why everybody loved him so much. It was an unsettling bemusement that fed hungrily on the moments in which Billy would say outrageously mean things to him.

Kundan straightened and wiped the excess sick off his face.

“This was stupid,” Charlie remarked and Billy began to close in on him.

“Are you crying, Charlie?” Billy nudged closer to his face.

“No,” Charlie pushed him back and Billy stumbled.

“It’s just a stupid deer,” Billy sneered and struggled to catch his footing as leaves and sticks broke under his pattering feet. He almost fell over and Jordan would have laughed if Billy hadn’t tried so desperately to pass it off as purposeful.

“Stop being a dick, Billy. This was a dumb fucking idea.” Charlie moved his hand back to Kundan’s shoulder.

Jordan suddenly felt very angry towards Charlie.

“Don’t be gay, you fag,” he shot at Charlie resentfully.

Charlie ignored him. Instead he turned to Kundan and asked again, “Are you ok?”

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Kundan’s dark irises flitted towards Charlie. The rest of his head turned slowly as if underwater. He put his hand over where Charlie’s open palm rested on his sleeve. Even in the moonlight Jordan could see the strain in Kundan’s fingers as his knuckles bulged and his hand wrapped desperately around Charlie’s.

“The damn thing is still alive,” Billy spat. The sound of his spit hitting the ground made the leaves crunch.

“We have to drop a rock on its head,” Billy announced.

“What?” Jordan asked, disgusted by the idea. “Why don’t you just shoot it again?”

“I can’t, dumbass. If people hear another shot they’ll come looking for it.” Billy had never looked smaller to Jordan as he did right then, standing with his tiny fists pushed into the pockets of his red flannelled fleece. The darkness only seemed to illuminate the spray of freckles across his pale face and the slightly jagged twist of his two front teeth. Posing in front of Jordan angrily, Billy looked ridiculous holding the oversized rifle against the ground. It only stood to a little bit above his narrow hip bone. **** After Charlie had slid the bullets across the cafeteria table, Billy grabbed them and snuck them back into his paper bag with a smirk.

“They’re your dad’s?” Jordan asked.

“Yup. He just left them out on the counter.” Billy took a bite of his sandwich before adding, “Dumbfuck.”

Charlie snorted in agreement causing Billy to glare at him icily.

“What?” Billy asked threateningly.

Charlie only smiled back.

“Anyways,” Billy spoke through a mouth filled with peanut butter. “I think we should go hunting tonight.”

“No way.” Charlie shook his head, causing his long mop of swishy brown hair to shake and stirring sudden annoyance in Jordan’s stomach.

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“Well what do you think, Condom?” Billy leaned his small torso across the table to look at Kundan’s face.

Kundan shrugged passively.

“It sounds more like sitting outside in the forest freezing my balls off.” He took another bite of his rice and grinned.

“Kundan doesn’t even sound like Condom, Billy.” Charlie pulled a water bottle out of his lunchbox. “You sound like an idiot.”

“Sure it does,” Billy rolled his eyes. “Besides, aren’t the Trojans from Persia or somewhere?”

“I’m Pakistani.” Kundan flicked a pea from his rice across the table at Billy, who smiled and squashed the pea under his thumb, spreading green mush out onto the table.

“A terrorist’s a terrorist,” Jordan interjected, regretting the words immediately as they left his mouth. Although Kundan chuckled with the other boys at the joke, Jordan could see the tired hurt in his face.

Billy laughed. “Jordan? What do you say? Do you want to shoot something?”

Jordan thought about it. He stared at the squished pea on the edge of the table. The green gunk would soon crust over and probably stay there until the next year when he was in eighth grade. Probably all the way through high school.

“How are you even going to get a gun?” Kundan asked dubiously.

“My dad’s going over to his girlfriend’s house tonight. It’ll be easy enough—he never locks the tool shed.”

The boys looked at each other expectantly. Maybe it was the suspicious hesitance painted across Charlie’s face, or the way Billy’s eyes gleamed mischievously under the fluorescent cafeteria lights, or Jordan’s own doubt that they’d actually be able to catch anything, but he felt himself begin to nod yes.

“Sure.” He grinned shyly. **** “I’m going home,” said Charlie. He was still holding on to Kundan.

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“Don’t be such a taint.” Billy rolled his eyes and walked over to the deer. He put his finger in the same spot Jordan had and waited for the blood to coat his finger at which point he began to paint two straight lines over his eyes and across his cheeks.

“It’s like Pennywise,” Billy explained and continued to mark his smooth, round face with blood. He turned around and smiled at the boys menacingly.

“Are you scared?” He smiled.

“What’s a taint?” Jordan asked.

“Whatever. This is fucked up.” Charlie had lost interest. He and Kundan turned around and started their way up hill towards the warm, blinking lights of civilization. With each step they took Jordan watched them twist through the trees and over the brambles and vines, conflicted by the idea of leaving with them or staying back with Billy in the cold forest. Charlie didn’t let go of Kundan’s hand the entire walk.

Jordan was made aware of Billy’s presence only once he spat onto the ground again. The sound ricocheted sharply against the thick mulch of the forest. The crunching of Charlie and Kundan’s footsteps faded until Jordan was completely alone with Billy and what was definitely a dead deer.

“C’mon,” Billy demanded. “Let’s go get a rock.”

He crouched down and began to search along the forest floor.

Watching Kundan and Charlie walk away, Jordan was struck with a greater sense of separation between them than there’d been before they’d walked into the woods that evening. Looking back towards the deer, Jordan felt a flare of guilt boil up into his belly and his head began to spin with a multitude of thoughts.

He wished more than anything to be at home watching TV with his brother under the fuzzy red blanket his mom kept on the couch. He wished that he’d chosen to turn around when Billy and the other boys walked into the forest at 6:47—right before sunset. Or that he hadn’t been so easily seduced by his fascination with the idea of killing something. More than anything, he wished that he didn’t feel so satisfied as he did when Billy pulled the trigger and hit the deer.

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That his heart hadn’t leapt at the sound of the bullet catching flesh, or that some sick part of him didn’t revel in watching the animal die at his hand.

It was a feeling he didn’t realize he’d continue to chase guiltily all the way through adolescence, a feeling of conquest that hung over his head like a waning moon. It was a restlessness that became most visible in the empty hours of the night and a frustration only temporarily relieved in moments of primitive release. Like standing up and screaming in the bed of John Dawson’s moving truck at age 16, relishing the feeling of the unforgiving wind pushing his body against itself as he threw empty glass beer bottles behind him. Or putting his fumbling hand up Elizabeth Jessup’s skirt that same year at Jack Millburn’s homecoming party, watching her round eyes widen in confusion and barely waiting for the smallest nod of consent before sliding his sweaty palm up the inside of her pale thigh.

He stared off into the enveloping darkness, feeling choked by the weight of the overwhelming black air that cloaked and held him against its foreboding chest. He looked back down at the drying blood between his fingers and at the dead doe, collapsed against the cold earth. Her head was lulled back like an empty puppet and her glazed, unblinking eyes stared up towards the mass of dark leaves on the thick branches. Jordan registered that his own eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness and wondered nervously what this moment would make of him as he inhaled what felt like his first real breath since they’d shot the gun.

Breathing his way out of his head, Jordan turned around and began to lazily search for rocks. He scanned the gravel of the forest even though the idea of bashing the doe’s head in made his stomach churn. He jogged over to the spot where Billy stood perched over something, trying to pick it up and it wasn’t until he’d caught up with him that Jordan recognized the acidic smell of urine running off a small stain on Billy’s puckered corduroy pants.

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Halloween Ethan Welsh I’m drunk on a stained couch—sucking a Dum-Dum when you ask who I am. I want to say my name but gag on the word.

I lift my tongue, show you my teeth.

The name drops easily from your mouth like candy into a sack—

Frida. I slurp my lollipop to the bone.

You watch, hungry.

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Tequila Louise Daigneault It is dark. City lights are flying by as blurred flashes of orange and green, and I think now of you picking me up after a night of margaritas at my favorite Mexican restaurant— margaritas, which were not very heavy on the tequila but made my cheeks blush a bright red anyways, clashing with my blue eyes as words tumbled out of my salty lips a little more haphazardly than usual— the restaurant, tucked into the corner of 72nd Street, where my parents used to take me.

I’d stand in line, holding a few of my father’s dollars to give to the older woman making fresh tortillas, the kind my brother and I preferred with butter. We would eat them, butter dripping down our fingers as we sipped virgin margaritas that have since become not very heavy on the tequila— tequila which made me that much more willing to give myself to you later that night, a task that once took much more, my Lutheran upbringing ringing in my ears, telling me to wait.

Pastors, parents, teachers telling me to wait for something they did not wait for— outdated, I’ve always known but somehow the thought has always sat in my stomach, shame seeping onto my skin every time I’ve given myself to someone new. I’ve had to work at scrubbing that feeling off my body— my legs, my chest, my stomach, reminding me of my skin crawling as my high school math teacher tells me to put a sweater on and “Don’t make me blush”— how dirty men on street corners 68

say the same things without hiding.

So I gave myself to you, when a hand rested on my thigh, this time invited— your hand, which I grabbed back as colors buzzed by out the passenger side window, the same way my brain was buzzing from the tequila, blurring city lights, but making it that much more clear that I should give myself to you, to the next, to whoever, this night or any night— if I want.

no was my only witness Liz Homick

I never sang consent

a symphony of yeses, if you need to’s, and of course’s my loss of autonomy

at the hands of assumed surrender fighting through a blurred sense of reality became

his taking and never returning of my own sovereignty hands sure and swift like a conductor

planning to make music out of this cacophony the dissonance like the screeching of your chalkboard nails

my bleeding was the first sign of rhythm in this lack of noise

our bodies moved out of beat, a discord of limbs to the friction of my resistance

if only you had waited for my please and thank you a harmony you’d never hear

maybe you would have witnessed my consent

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Home Making Cecilia Cook The space between her thighs bleeds in time with my nose, the gush, the spill, I lean down and lick up her pain,

my pain, our pain.

We nuzzle under the heavy moon outside, nestled in our blankets, the ones your mother spun from raw fingers, the ones my mother broke her back to buy.

We come together with our painful gasps, reminded of all the women that came before, reminded of the blood spilt from my kind,

your kind, our kind, who hated with every step we took up the stairs to get to our bed and our memories and our loving.

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Never Trust a Cop With a Rubber Glove, Philip Dodge, photograph

71

The Pill

Originally published in Laurel Moon

Gabriella Meléndez My throat still burns from trying to dry swallow the pill the first time.

Val asked if I could get groceries later today. When I reminded her that I was taking the pill today her mouth dropped into an apologetic ‘O’ before closing quickly, her eyes darting down to my stomach then back up to me. She said she could try to get groceries after class, then asked if I wanted anything in particular.

“Chips maybe. Some Special K for breakfast tomorrow,” I replied, my hand closed around the pill. She nodded, looked down at my stomach again, and then left for work.

My hand was still closed around that pill while I sat at the edge of my bed, staring at what lay in the palm of my hand, hoping if I stared at it long enough, it would somehow melt into my skin, keeping me from having to actually swallow it. After an hour passed, it still hadn’t dissolved into my skin. I realized that staring at it wouldn’t make the process any less painful. That was quickly proven wrong when I quickly shoved the thing into my mouth, trying to swallow with what little moisture was on my tongue. My throat felt like it was on fire, the pill deciding then that it would melt through my throat and back out. The water from the bathroom sink was lukewarm, but it felt like sweet honey as I took it in gulps, not minding that the water was running down my chin, dripping onto my hair and hands.

My hands had slammed on the faucet, stopping the running water before I wiped my chin, ignoring the red eyes staring back at me in the mirror. ****

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An hour passed sitting on my computer trying to finish a paragraph for this English assignment before I felt it. The tug on my lower abdomen that had me waddling towards the bathroom. A warmth was running down my legs, pooling in my socks before dripping onto the linoleum floor. I quickly stepped into the bathtub, watching the blood continue to drip onto the white porcelain surface. I would have to clean the bathroom floor before Val came back in the next

hour. And probably wash my jeans and underwear which were stained beyond repair at this point. I could feel myself pull my pants and underwear down, but my eyes were locked on the faucet of the shower, trying to avoid looking at the blood.

Like a heavy period, they said. Like a heavy period, some cramping.

You may see some blood clots.

Turning the hot water on, I had begun to strip myself of the rest of my clothes, t-shirt, bra, socks. I hung them over the rail of the shower curtain, knowing full well that they wouldn’t dry with the water still running. But with a steady stream, at least I could finally look down as the blood mixed with the water ran down the drain.

Lying down, I let the water beat against my skin. It felt calming against my somewhat shaking limbs. Reminding me of Jason’s skin against mine. The idea of Jason being here while the blood flowed down the drain made me grip the edge of the tub. Would he sit at the edge and rub my back while I breathed through each cramp? He brought me a warm compress and a blanket that one time I got my period suddenly at his apartment. Hadn’t cringed from the blood.

But something tells me that this would be too much. Just a little too much. The insinuation that he was responsible for part of it. He was too sweet, too sweet for what I was putting my body through. To protect him. To protect us.

Breathe through the first several rounds of cramps, let the water wash it away.

Maybe I’d call Jason when it was all over. Let him come over and rub my shoulders while he talked about his exams. About that one professor who was trying to fuck him over or what he wanted to do over spring break. I’d nod along and take an ibuprofen, insisting I’m having a bad period. He’d believe me.

Val knocked on the door an hour later.

“Michelle, is everything okay?” she asked, opening the door. I guess I should have locked it.

“Yeah,” I said, my hands still gripping the edge of the tub.

“How long have you been in there?” she asked. My head turned, I could see her silhouette through the shower curtain. A thump told me she’d put the toilet seat down and was sitting on it. When 73

I looked down, the red between my legs was lighter, the water slapping against my rusted thighs.

“An hour,” I replied, turning my head to watch her silhouette rise from the seat before leaving the room.

“I brought some pads for you, and one of those heating pads,” her voice echoed from the other room. The door to the bathroom opened again and I heard Val move several things around, watched her grab my wet clothes from the shower railings.

“I brought you a towel and some clothes. There’s a pad and fresh underwear on the toilet seat,” she said, her voice calm and controlled, sounding like the nurse that handed me the first pill at the clinic yesterday.

“Thank you,” I replied. When I didn’t hear her leave the room, I raised myself up enough to turn off the water, letting her know I’m getting out. The door finally closed, and before I got out of the tub, my eyes caught on the red clump near the drain. **** “Jason texted me today,” Val stated from the other side of the kitchen island, walking back and forth as she put the groceries away. “He asked why you weren’t returning any of his texts.”

“I haven’t been around my phone all day. And I’ve been trying to finish this essay,” I replied, my eyes scanning over the words on my computer screen. A pain quickly pierced through my stomach, drawing me away from the words for a moment before I continued on.

“Can you close the laptop for a moment and text him back then? He sounded kinda antsy,” Val replied.

“I’m almost done with my essay. And I want to finish it before break so that way I don’t have to worry about it for the week.”

“Jason’s worried about you. He asked why you skipped discussion yesterday.”

“Tell him the truth, I have heavy cramps.”

“Why don’t you tell him?” Val asked, stopping in front of me, her 74

eyes piercing a hole through my screen. Several seconds passed before she leaned over the table and closed the laptop.

“What?” I asked, my eyes darting up to hers, hands reaching to open the screen again. Val grabbed the laptop and pulled it away from me.

“Michelle,” she said in that clipped tone she had earlier today, “are you going to tell him?”

We remained like that for several seconds. Her hand on my laptop, my eyes locked on hers.

“Eventually,” I replied, not even sure if I really meant it. Val could read me easily; she lowered herself so she’s resting on her forearms.

“He has a right to know,” she whispered. “It’s your choice and I respect that. But he should be here.”

“He doesn’t need to be here.”

“He’s the fucking father, Michelle.”

“There is no father,” I ground out, rising from the seat, “because there is no baby.”

Val tilted her head, biting her lip as she reached for my hand but I let them fall to my lap, watching her intently.

“Fine,” she conceded, “I’m not going to tell him anything, that’s your business.”

“Thank you,” I sighed, reaching for my laptop. Val raised her hands, letting me open it again.

“But you have to promise me that you will tell him, soon,” she said.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. The look on Val’s face told me that if I didn’t agree to tell Jason, she’d tell him herself.

“If I tell Jason about my abortion…” I trailed off, unsure of how to finish the sentence. Val waited for me to come up with something, and when she realized that I wouldn’t finish my sentence, she walked around the island, taking a seat in the stool next to me, grabbing my hands from the keyboard and placing them on my lap.

“Michelle,” she whispered.

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“If I tell Jason about my abortion, how do I know that he will understand? That he can deal with something this heavy?”

“He doesn’t have to deal with it. He’s supposed to help you deal with it. Work through it with you. The whole point of having a partner is that they help you and stick with you, especially during the hard parts,” Val stated.

“I know that,” I whispered looking down at my hands. Another cramp ripped through my side. “I’m 21, Val. He’s 21. We’re not supposed to have to deal with something this hard. If I tell him, how do I know that we can move past this? That this won’t stick in the back of his mind? Everytime I think about it, all that I can imagine is him getting overwhelmed with the idea that this could have happened.”

“It shouldn’t matter about how he’s feeling. He’s not the one having the abortion.”

“I know that.”

Val and I sat there, her hands wrapped around mine, resting in my lap.

“I’m 21. I’m not supposed to deal with this until I’m older. I’m on the pill. The one time that I forget it, the one time, the condom breaks.

Things like that aren’t supposed to happen to you at 21. I’m not supposed to deal with this now. I’m supposed to complain about writing an essay for English or getting an internship this summer.

Not how to break it to my boyfriend that I got pregnant but had an abortion before telling him.”

Val reached over and wiped away a tear I didn’t know was there.

When I looked down, I noticed our hands are splattered with them. A cramp twisted my insides. Val must have seen the visible discomfort on my face, because she rose and reached into the medicine cabinet, taking out a bottle of ibuprofen and placing it in front of me.

“Are you afraid he would have wanted to keep it?” Val asked. I shook my head. Jason had joked for months about how, god forbid, he’d ever end up with a kid while in college. I had agreed, because the idea of having to care for something else, when I could barely care for myself was idiotic. I still ate cup of noodles at one a.m because Val and I would forget to get groceries. There were days when I’d miss 76

class because I was behind on a group project or my period cramps were “too distracting”. Everytime we had sex, Jason insisted we use a condom because the idea of having a kid seemed idiotic to us.

Seemed like a funny joke.

“You know he’s going to worry about you, if you don’t text him back.

He cares about you enough to notice you weren’t in a class he doesn’t even go to. He texted me, and I’m going to be honest, I’ve never given him my number.”

“He asked me for your number once,” I whispered, “In case of emergencies.”

Val snorted and fell back into the stool, placing her hand on my leg.

“Talk to him, please,” she whispered. My eyes remained on her hand, but my mind wandered back to the incessant pain in my abdomen.

“Okay.” **** The bleeding stopped after about six hours. I kept going to the bathroom and wiping and wiping, even when the toilet paper burned a light pink. The image of that dark red clot in the bathtub drain flashed into my mind, making me run to the toilet one more time, to change my pad and wipe again, just to see if anything had changed.

Nothing. I was sore down there, and my abdomen still felt a pulse of contractions with the cramps. I waited until Val had left for her evening class before I grabbed my phone that had been plugged in all day. Twelve missed calls. Ten messages. All from Jason. Asking if I was sick, why I hadn’t picked up, saying he got Val’s number, asking if he could come over. It took several minutes before my fingers scrolled through the latest calls and dialed his number again. The phone only rang once.

“Michelle?” Jason’s voice was audibly relieved, a deep sigh heaved through the phone.

“Hey, I’m sorry I hadn’t seen any of your calls. My phone had been plugged in all day—” “Are you okay, are you sick? I talked with Val and she told me you were home but that you weren’t feeling well. Are you sick?” he repeated. My fingers gripped the phone, I sighed through the 77

cramps.

“Fine, I mean, better now. Yeah I was feeling kind of under the weather. Really bad cramps,” I finally said, deciding that would be a good place to start.

“Oh, are they bad this month?” he asked. My lips pursed, my fingers picking at the loose strands of the comforter.

“Pretty bad, yeah,” I replied. “I took ibuprofen earlier and I’ve just been resting. Probably won’t go to class tomorrow either. A little nauseous.”

“Do you want me to come over?” he asked, his voice full of worry. I swallowed that burn in my throat.

“Yeah. Yeah I’d like that.” **** Jason was at my door twenty minutes later, ginger ale in one hand and a bag of popcorn in the other.

“I figured if you were feeling down you wouldn’t wanna do anything too strenuous so I thought we could just watch a movie? A little popcorn? If you are still feeling nauseous I have ginger ale,” he stated, motioning to the popcorn and drink. I couldn’t even hide the tug of a smile on my lips, despite the pain in my stomach.

Jason sat beside me on the couch, reaching over and pulling a blanket across us before grabbing the remote to flip through the channels.

“Have you taken anything for the cramps?” he asked, looking over at me. I nodded.

“Ibuprofen.”

“Feeling any better?” he asked.

“Yeah, a little,” I lied. Jason beamed and scooted closer to me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me into his chest.

Several minutes into the movie and the only thing I had been focusing on was Jason’s fingers as they slid across my hips and abdomen. After the twentieth time, I turned to look at Jason. He was watching the movie with such intensity, it took him a moment before he realized I’d been watching him. Once he realized, his face lit up 78

and he leaned down to plant a kiss on my forehead.

“Is everything alright?” he asked. I swallowed deeply, my throat tense.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “Just a bad period.”

My throat still burns from trying to dry swallow the pill the first time.

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Lady Peony Emily Wang I emerge stillborn, misshapen. Exit life tearing mother’s Camellia-pink insides: squelching wet, bleeding in Scarlet spurts. Blood bubbles, metal smelt On nitrile gloves, powder-blue, rubber snaps. By God, I have Ruined her. Skin seared, scar stretching on lower belly where the Skin wrinkles like milk-curdle, melting candelilla wax.

Flesh perforations, collagen pinstripes as Dashed and dotted lines. It was me, I was the assailant.

I flash my thorn-teeth and bloom: At last, spring, with meek and wiley April maiden sends her Rain, hateful drizzling over parched soil.

Wounds

In response to Louise Gluck’s "Children Coming Home from School"

Ethan Welsh You named your son’s downturned brow an accusation. He became snow—silent and steady. My mother taught me my blood does not run hot. I slipped knives between her ribs, to the hilt and climbed to where she could not reach.

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Pattern, Karli Lawrence, watercolor inks and graphite on paper

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Chang’e / 嫦娥 Emily Wang Rabbit on moon, wield mortar-pestle. Hearken to the Bearer of bad news. Princess alone, Temple on fire. Cast a stone Into the well and made a wish for Another friend: Red-eyed rabbit, black nose, Snoring bubbly snores. She says: sleep, sleep, Good old girl, with your doughy Dewlap hanging over pointed feet. Wonder, what Must happen in rabbit-dreams.

Must do penance now, with Wax-hands clasped around crescent column.

Rice flour, dust colored, candle-lit face Lovely lantern drifting downstream, paper nest containing Small blue flame, flickering. Yet, Moon is home—where she will sleep on A cold bed, smooth surfaced. Orbits like White jade bangle, cool to the touch: Always winter, never spring.

Thumbprints leaving Crater-like wounds on peachskin.

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Root Canal Madison Yoest you always say the choir under my tongue is off-key and i cant help it when they speak because my tongue is busy tending to the exit wounds of rocks you threw into my face and i’m trying to stop swallowing scabs while the rocks burrow between my teeth and carve pictures of you into my gums and i’m choking on your eyes and because these rocks get heavier when wet and my spit is spewing from my lips the hinges of my jaw crack and you can hear the screams from the songbirds in my throat and i swear i tried to lock them in my ribs but they chewed through my lungs and so i bit off their wings and now you can see the empty graves see empty graves in my mouth and you take my chin into purple fingertips and slam it shut.

Notes on carrying my own firewood Caroline X. Adkins Father, your devotion to God sears into me.

This mountain used to blend into the sunset.

Up close, it’s less divine—weeds in the crag,

dirty creeks, empty exoskeletons amongst the pebbles.

I want to kick off my shoes

and run.

As if by running, I can escape.

As if by escaping, we’ll both be released from this.

But in the absence of a lamb, I’ll be holy.

So father,

bind me over the wood.

Pour through me with a blade as sharp as your zeal.

Even as I bleed, I’ll revere you.

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Prayer Hands: A Ghazal Allison Garey I go to church, consecrated bread in my hand.

The tears roll down my cheeks, bury my face in my hand.

A girl finds her way into my life, my house, my bed, Thumb brushing against her lip, her face framed in my hand.

Tears of shame well in eyes staring blankly ahead, I stew in my regret with The Book in my hand.

Innocent words feel harsher in the light of day— Juice drips, feet slip, she strips, the fruit held in my hand.

To stay in shadows or to live, I must choose tonight, Flick the safety on and off, got a gun in my hand.

Can’t bear to think of my sins or the weight of living, Drink tonight, caps off, tops off, bottle in my hand.

Yet still, I am beloved, as love cannot be wrong, Deep breaths, Ally, for you have salvation in your hand.

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The Cloth II, Haoran Li, acrylic on canvas

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The Gift Caleb Wein Gold light pours from the Sun, painting the air like one of Klimt’s canvases and, wishing to share such beauty, I gather my hands in a shallow cup palms facing out to the Sun as if ready to receive some precious coins or perhaps a few drops of something more valuable I wait for the light to draw in and when I feel its warmth land, my trap springs shut hands clasped together in a ball the same way I had done as a boy playing in the backyard: grasshopper squirming against my palms while I ran to my sister and with exuberant force thrust out my arms, opening up the cage of fingers with a giggle as the grasshopper sprung at her But now I run home with hands pressed together, air tight, to make sure nothing escapes When I burst in the door you look at me as though I’m mad and ask what I’ve brought inside

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I grin but remain silent and wait for you to lean in then slowly hinge open my hands There is no light but rather, perched on my palm, a butterfly opens its golden wings

Virgilio Miranda Donovan last night i dreamt i caught a nightingale and watched him writhe between my fingers, sugar dusted ferns that looked white in the night. his name was Virgilio and i, shaking, held him close to my breast. the hibiscus moon wept, a pink petal hurricane that devoured the sugar plantations and demanded i give him back. i didn’t mean to use my skin against his

feathers—believe me, i know this island is not mine, it never will be, and i shouldn’t have

come here in the first place. i can’t control dreams, but i know i can’t go back when the brush

bristles with humidity and hurls their warnings to the gods. they send lightning to kill but they

don’t strike me—no, they strike the ground and send me running, into the rain forest that swelters with the song of the nightingale and my red white and blue screams. have you ever seen a palm fall? it falls fast, deep into the atlantic, caught between the tectonic shift of the night. i awoke in my room an ocean away and let him go and he soared away, back to the island with burn marks on his shoulders— the markings of a pair of hands that will never understand his silence.

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Fall Rachel Grossman It’s fall, and the trees are bleeding.

Bright red platelets fall to the ground and coat it like a crime scene.

We’ve been robbed of summer.

Bright red like stoplights and stop signs and stopping in the middle

of a sidewalk To watch the ghosts of your breath drift away Hoping to haunt somewhere warmer, Somewhere they aren’t so fantastical; Worship is tedious praise to accept.

An onslaught of “thank yous” That they, for all the air they are, Do not have the breath to return.

Forget a “you’re welcome”.

No one is welcome in winter.

Fall is the land of hospitality, but winter follows it with Doors made for slamming in frostbitten faces And fires that taunt like caterpillars that stay thin when The morning dew freezes on the tips of lingering leaves Still resisting bleeding down.

Fall begins with arterial rainfall and ends with Bruises and scabs set into soggy ground.

Trees with wiry fingers try to sew up the bleed, but It is no use.

Eventually, ice will cauterize it.

Summer at least ends with that mercy.

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Staff Biographies Ethan Welsh is a senior English major with a Creative Writing minor. He likes hiking and mac n cheese.

Balbina Yang is a junior English major and Art History minor. She enjoys swimming and watching Food Network.

Marjorie Antonio is a sophomore History major and Asian American studies and Art History minor. Some of her favourite things in life are as follows: specialty focaccia bread from the UMD Farmers Market, 0.9 lead pencils, star-gazing, and slam poetry.

Rao (Michelle) Li is a freshman double majoring in Computer Science and Art. She enjoys drawing, listening to KPOP, and gushing over other people’s art.

Joan Rhee is a sophomore in the Art Education major. In her free time, she loves spending hours folding paper (aka origami) and loves filling up her sketchbooks.

Rahul Jain is a sophomore aerospace engineering major who loves listening to and writing music. He also loves to make people laugh with Erasable Inc, UMD’s all-improvised performance group.

Will Lee is a sophomore English and Computer Science double major who enjoys drawing, composing, and reading science fiction.

Vivian Yeh is a sophomore Studio Art and Psychology double major.

In addition to Stylus, she designs layouts for UMD’s cultural arts magazine, Unwind. She likes cats and dark humor.

Matthew Herskovitz is a sophomore studying English and Government and Politics with a minor in Creative Writing. He learned how to ride a bike last April.

Amadea Oberg is a freshman Film Studies and History double major. They are thrilled to be an editor of Stylus given that they spend the majority of their free time writing.

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Alice Bi is a sophomore English and Government double major with a concentration in International Relations. Despite having grown up in Beijing and Singapore, her hometown—Taipei—is still the city she loves the most.

Gabriella Meléndez is a junior English major minoring in Creative Writing, Rhetoric, and hopefully Spanish (if she can figure out her schedule). She is a technical writing intern for the Smith School of Business, a writer for the UMD Chapter of Her Campus, and has a Bookstagram account where she reviews books.

Neida Mbuia-João is a senior English major and history minor. She writes when she can, reads when she can, but mostly you can find her re-watching the first three seasons of Gilmore Girls and calling its screenwriting “research.”

Johnna Schmidt is the Director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also teaches fiction classes. She can be contacted at jmschmid@umd.edu.

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Contributor Biographies Paula Molina Acosta is a graduating Women’s Studies major with a minor in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she is a campus activist and organizer for Latina, lesbian, and immigrant causes at UMD. She writes science fiction, fantasy, and whatever else she wants. She dabbles in poetry when the wind changes. Paula is a Leo. Caroline X. Adkins is a sophomore psychology student. Previously, she’s been published in Erehwon, the yearly literary journal of Churchill High School. Outside of writing poetry, Caroline enjoys singing, watching musicals, and spending time with her dog, Hunter.

Bethel Afful has been playing music since she was five years old, and writing since she was fifteen. She considers songwriting to be the best way for her to express herself and connect to other people.

“The Flower” is a reiterated version of one of her first songs. The original was written in 2016, and since then, the song has been through a series of rewrites and revisions. In addition to being fully written and performed by her under her stage name, BÉA, the song is also self-recorded and self-produced.

Marjorie Antonio is a self-taught artist and poet. Her biggest aspiration is to be the modern-day renaissance man. When she is not making art, she is either at the art store or working to pay off her last trip to the art store.

Cassiel Arcilla is a freshman Studio Art major. She is a huge supporter of local creatives. Storytelling through film, art, and music are what makes her heart burst, and she is hoping one day she can share her vision on the big screen.

Alice Bi is a sophomore English and Government double major with a concentration in International Relations. She has lived in Taipei, Beijing, and Singapore. Alice currently resides in Maryland as a member of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House.

Spencer Chan is a computer science freshman in the Design Cultures & Creativity honors program. His music is inspired by the 91

video games he’s played over the years. His favorites are Minecraft and Super Smash Brothers.

Riya Chaudhry is a Government and Politics/Art Studio double major from Irvine, CA. She is an avid artist, reader, dancer, and writer who enjoys just about any form of creative expression.

Cecilia Cook is the author of fantasy-adventure “Rise of the Ieta.”

After graduating the Literary Arts program at G.W. Carver Center, Cook went on to the University of Maryland where she studies English and Psychology. A future resident of the Jimenez-Porter House, Cook plans to broaden her craft and continue publishing novels, short stories, and poetry. Besides writing, Cook is interested in crafting and is currently hosting a collage workshop through the Art Scholars program called “Empowerment Through Collage.”

Linnea Cooley is a poet and writer at the University of Maryland.

Her poetry appears in Neologism Poetry Journal, Boston Accent Lit, and Straight Forward Poetry among others.

Louise Daigneault is a sophomore Community Health major.

Although she knew she didn’t want to pursue creative writing as a major, she has always enjoyed writing and valued the ability to express her thoughts through poetry. Her favorite aspect of poetry is that she can delve into how she’s feeling in both big and small moments in a way she cannot without writing. The best part of it all is ending up with something that is entirely hers.

Philip Dodge is not the rash playboy the media makes him out to be. Rather, he is a humble engineering student and devout Buddhist.

Philip hopes one day to combine the power of science with the wisdom of Buddha to improve the human condition.

Miranda Donovan is a sophomore architecture major.

Dani Feng is a freshman CompSci major. She enjoys cartoons and drawing round animals. Please check out her shop for round animal goodies: https://dfeng.bigcartel.com/ Allison Garey is a junior double majoring in both Music and English, with focuses in Voice Performance and Creative Writing. In addition 92

to this, they are a second-year Writers' House student. A fun fact about them is that they don't know how to write a bio!

S.C. Giedzinski is a comedian, goat farmer, and University of Maryland engineering student whose short stories have been published by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, AADL, and Stylus.

Katherine Gourianova is a freshman in the ILS program majoring in Biology and Linguistics. She spends many of her hours on the ice curling and the precious few left over daydreaming about the garden she’d have if she could keep a plant alive for longer than a couple weeks.

Rachel Grossman is a freshman Biology major with a love of poetry, tea, and cats.

Matthew Herskovitz is a Sophomore studying English and Government & Politics with a minor in Creative Writing. He is also from Baltimore.

Nina Holtz is a senior English and Communication double major at UMD. She is part of UMD’s all-sketch comedy group, Sketchup, and enjoys writing both comedy and stories.

Liz Homick is a junior History major seeking to go into graduate school for Library Sciences and Information Technologies. When she isn’t writing overdramatic poetry about her life or what she wished life was like, Liz also enjoys playing intramural soccer, literally running away from her problems, or pretending she’s an amateur fashion designer. She is a member of the Catholic Student Center and enjoys volunteering with Terps Against Hunger. In addition to being a studious member of the History Departmental Honors Program and College Park Scholars program, she also can be found working in the Office of New Student Orientation or ARHU Student Affairs.

Callie Ingersen is an emerging poet and creative nonfiction writer of the DMV area and a proud Prince George’s County native herself. She is currently pursuing undergraduate studies in Human Development and English at the University of Maryland.

Rahul Jain is a sophomore aerospace engineering major who loves 93

listening to and writing music. He also loves to make people laugh with Erasable Inc, UMD’s all-improvised performance group.

Sasha Kahn is a senior studying architecture and government & politics at the University of Maryland. His passion for writing poetry began during an elementary school after school program. Once he learned to play the guitar, his focus shifted to songwriting, but he continues to write poetry from time to time.

Karli Lawrence is a junior Bio major who has been specializing in watercolors since high school. Her piece considers the patterns of how we handle pain when it hits, and the universal nature of pain.

Haoran Li is a current sophomore studying biology and studio art.

Painting on canvas is her favorite medium.

Meghan Lockwood studies Classics and writes poems in her free time at UMD. She is currently spending the spring semester in Rome, Italy. Her interests include Latin love elegy, classical art, binging true crime, playing with her puppy, and creative writing. You can follow her poetic pursuits @writesallnight on Instagram.

Gabriella Meléndez is a junior at the University of Maryland. Her obsession with reading and writing began in middle school after she was introduced to “The Hunger Games”. Since then, she’s written bad fan-fiction, decent short stories, and drafts and drafts of novels she has yet to finish. Her goal in life is to become an editor in a swanky New York City publishing house while drinking tea to her heart’s content and bingeing all the Marvel films she can.

Kevin Merrell is a Junior Finance and Information systems major at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. He has been making music for close to a decade now after picking up producing in the 6th grade. Doing his own vocals and what not has been a much more recent thing; he must have started that around 2 years ago. He definitely thinks he’s still growing as an artist but he’s becoming ever so slightly more confident in his work. The ultimate goal is getting enough people to listen to him so he can fix the Montgomery County Ride On system. Honestly no one is taking the rideon on purpose.

Mmesomachukwu Nnoruka enjoys drawing black or Afrocentric 94

characters and focuses a lot on expressing their stories through their style or their poses.

North Anatolian Fault is a band formed in College Park. They make music that they declare hip-hop, which is the genre that they consider to be the “final frontier.” They have an album and a few singles on soundcloud, spotify, and apple music, and are looking forward to expanding what is possible in the realm of music. Their A-side, Heat, is their newest attempt to do just that.

Emily Ray is a junior at Maryland studying English Literature with a minor in creative writing. This is her first short story.

Hadas Sandalon is a sophomore flute performance and english double major, as well as a first year in the Jimenez Porter’s Writers’ House. Hadas has loved music from a young age. As she continued learning the flute, her fascination with other types of music, such as film and video game soundtracks, grew. She has begun writing her own music, from simple melodies and chords on her ukulele to fully orchestrated pieces on musescore.

Adrienne Stovall is a transfer student, mom of two, former midwife, and is back in school for a third time to finish a degree in English.

Doron Tadmor is a senior double majoring in operations management and international business, and double minoring in Spanish and technology entrepreneurship. He has been painting since elementary school, with his grandmother teaching him when to use sable or nylon, round or filbert, and oil or acrylic. Most of his work surrounds environmental or social justice concepts and makes viewers think hard about the concept at hand.

Brooke Tweedie is a 19-year-old Psychology and Criminal Justice double major in her sophomore year at the University of Maryland.

She has had a strong interest in poetry ever since she learned its meaning in an elementary school English class. The relationship between language and emotion fascinates her. Poetry always has been and continues to be a favorite outlet for her to work through difficult memories and perplexing situations in life.

Emily Wang is a junior at the University of Maryland.

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Caleb Wein is a freshman aerospace major at the University of Maryland. He is also an internationally competitive ice dancer on Team USA. He began writing poetry in high school where he also got his first work published in his high school literary magazine.

Ethan Welsh is an undergraduate creative writing student at the University of Maryland, College Park. He’s currently working on a YA comic series titled ‘Revelations’ which takes Christian lore into a modern sci-fi world.

Robert Wolle indulges in art of nearly every medium including music, prose, poetry, photography, and film. His stories find themselves either lost in the throngs of psychedelia/science fiction or grounded in his immediate, subtle experience.

Balbina Yang is a junior studying English and Art History. She enjoys swimming and watching Food Network.

Vivian Yeh is a sophomore Studio Art and Psychology double major.

In addition to Stylus, she designs layouts for UMD’s cultural arts magazine, Unwind. She likes cats and dark humor.

Madison Yoest is a freshman English major with a double minor in Creative Writing and Spanish. In her free time, she enjoys reading, working out, and trying to pet every dog she sees.

Jacy Zhang is a junior English major whose works have appeared in Laurel Moon and Impressions. Outside of school, she worships Jesus with her campus fellowship and practices Chinese martial arts.

Daniel Zheng is a third year Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics student. He is a member of the Integrated Life Sciences Honors College and the Jimenez Porter Writer’s House. While he hopes to study medicine in the future, he hopes writing will continue to be an important part of his life.

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Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following organizations and individuals for their support. Their generosity has enabled us to publish a journal each year that fosters a community for undergraduate writers and artists, celebrating their passion and creativity.

BENEFACTORS The Student Government Association The JimÊnez-Porter Writers’ House

FRIENDS Department of English | Department of Art | School of Languages, Literature, and Cultures | College of Arts and Humanities | Office of Undergraduate Studies | Program in Creative Writing | The Center for Comparative and Literary Studies | Booklab | Department of Printing Services | Johnna Schmidt | John Prince | Vivianne Salgado | Jacky Mueck | Paul Cote | Lindsay Bernal | Laura Lauth | Naliyah Kaya | Meg Eden | Ely Vance | Shevaun Brannigan | Emily Tuttle | Jon Dvorak | Danny McGee | Katie Stone | Ambi Narula | Ralph Bauer

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Stylus and the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House Stylus is largely funded by and supported by the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, a living and learning program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Some of the journal’s staff members belong to the program, though any UMD student can be involved with Stylus. Located within Queen Anne’s Hall, the Writers’ House is a campus-wide literary hub for the study of creative writing across cultures. Students hone their skills through workshops, colloquia, and lectures led by Writers’ House faculty and visiting authors. The two-year program is open to students of all majors and years. For more information about joining Writers’ House, visit our website at writershouse.umd.edu or email the director, Johnna Schmidt, at jmschmid@umd.edu.

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Submission Guidelines Stylus accepts high-quality submissions of poetry, prose, art, photography, and audio/performance from all current University of Maryland students. Our reading period is from January to March, and our final deadlines tend to be late January for writing and Early March for visual arts and audio/performance.

We accept up to five total pieces per submission season. The work is put through a rigorous, anonymous review process. A brief biography to accompany the work in event of publication must be submitted with the piece. We maintain flexibility in the layout process.

No work is guaranteed acceptance until publication.

1. Do not include any identifying information in the document containing your work. Pieces submitted with names, UIDs, bios, or other identifying information in the document itself will be rejected.

2. You may submit to more than one category. We would prefer that you cap your submission count to five total pieces across categories.

3. A valid UID is required to submit, and must be included in the “Cover Letter” field. Only University of Maryland undergraduate students may submit to Stylus.

4. Your name and a brief third-person bio must be included in the “Cover Letter” field. The bio will accompany the work in event of publication.

5. Each piece should be submitted in a separate document. Do not group pieces into one file or document.

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POETRY You may submit up to 5 poems.

PROSE Stylus has a 3,000 word limit on all prose pieces, with a sweet spot of 1,500 words. If any edits or revisions seem necessary, Stylus will contact you as soon as possible. You may submit up to 3 pieces.

MULTILINGUAL Work should be accompanied by an English translation in the document file. Submit multilingual prose pieces to the prose category and multilingual poetry pieces to the poetry category.

ART Files should be at 300dpi or greater. Submitters should also include information about the title and medium in the comment field.

Students unable to send their pieces electronically should contact our Art Editors. You may submit up to 5 pieces.

AUDIO/PERFORMANCE These submissions can consist of music, spoken-word/slam poetry, dance, and more.

Files should be MP3 for audio submissions and MP4 or MOV for performance-based arts that have been filmed. We also accept links to SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, or other easy-to-navigate platforms for music or performances. You may submit up to 3 pieces. If you have questions or concerns, please email styluslit@gmail.com.

Guidelines may change over time. Keep checking our website at styluslit.org.

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